Catherine Willows' Guide To Surviving Sara Sidle
by QTR
Summary: Catherine and Sara are stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing but each other to rely on for survival... whether they like it or not. Eventual Cath/Sara. Rating changed for content.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Catherine Willows' Guide To Surviving Sara Sidle

**Rating: **T

**Summary: **Catherine and Sara are stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing but each other to rely on for survival... whether they like it or not.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing but my original characters. CSI, its characters and its affiliates all belong to Jerry Bruckheimer, Anthony Zuiker and some other important people.

**A/N:** This story is actually a little OOC at the beginning, but I wanted to make it clear that Catherine and Sara are really at each other's throats in this fic. Obviously, Cath and Sara would never get away with having an argument like this in the lab, but for the sake of fanfiction, they do in this story ;) This fic doesn't necessarily take place at any specific time, all you need to know is that right now they hate each other. This first chapter is basically taking every single one of their fights on the show and blowing it up a hundred times. Who doesn't enjoy a little cat-fight every now and then? Also, just a note, this first chapter is a little on the long side, but the other chapters probably won't be quite as long. Regardless, I hope you guys enjoy it :)

"Cath, 419 off of Craig Road."

Well that was just the icing on the goddamn cake. As if not getting enough sleep the night before wasn't bad enough, now she had a crime scene in the middle of nowhere?

"Gee, thanks, Gil," Catherine replied, her tone stinging with venom as she snatched the slip out of his hand. "On what's supposed to be one of the hottest days in Vegas history since... when did the news say it was... '79?"

"'77, actually," Grissom replied, innocent enough. "I'm sorry Cath, but Nick and Warrick are still working that 420 and Greg had a court date. I need you on this one."

Catherine let out an irritated groan, hating the puppy dog look he was giving her. There was no one else who existed in the world who could upset her this early in the morning.

Thinking quick, Catherine tried to get rid of the case. "What about Sara? She's not working on anything."

Grissom's face lit up and for a minute Catherine felt triumphant. "That's right. Take her with you."

Catherine's jaw all but dropped as Grissom turned and walked off. "W-Wait!" she called out after him. "You're joking, right?"

Catherine and Sara had been sparring back and forth-- again-- for about a week or so now. Their last case they had worked together was a complete disaster. Sara was sure the husband had killed his wife and had gotten rid of the evidence, but Catherine disagreed-- all the evidence pointed to suicide. After Sara had her seven hundredth blow-up with a suspect she was suspended and Catherine took over the case.

Sara's blow-up with the suspect and Ecklie had gotten pretty nasty. The suspect had called Sara a "stupid little whore" to which she retorted with "dirty bastard". Catherine didn't hear what Sara had said to Ecklie, but they both looked pretty pissed off when she had stormed out of his office like a child who didn't get their way.

They hadn't said anything to each other since. They avoided each other in the hallways. If one of them was getting coffee in the break room, the other would wait until they left the room. They even refused to share the locker room at the same time. One time Sara was inside changing just as Catherine was coming onto shift, and she took once glance inside the locker room, saw Sara's bra-garbed back to her and waited outside until she left.

It was getting pretty ridiculous at this point, but both women were too stubborn to admit it.

Grissom turned around in the hallway and stopped, shrugging his shoulders. "No?"

"Gil..." Catherine tried to laugh, "You can't be serious... Sara and I aren't exactly on good terms right now." It seemed to burn her tongue just to say her name.

"Well then this will be good for you," Grissom shrugged. "For both of you. You need to work it out, right?" It almost sounded like he was going to add, "That's what you women do, isn't it?"

Catherine simply stared at Grissom as he turned and walked off, at a loss for words. Well, today was going to suck, that much she knew for sure.

With a sigh Catherine turned and headed for the locker room to change shoes. It looked like she wasn't getting out of this one, and from experience, high heels and hot, desolate, possibly rocky areas didn't mix.

As she was entering Sara was just exiting and they ran into each other. She looked like she had just shown up and was heading for the break room to get a cup of Greg's coffee.

Both women backed up a few inches and stared at each other. Once they made eye contact they immediately looked away.

"Sorry," Sara muttered, pushing past Catherine. "I should get out of your way. You don't want to set off the ticking time-bomb, do you?"

Well, there was_ almost _no one else who existed in the world that could upset Catherine this early in the morning.

Catherine rolled her eyes. God, how long was Sara going to be upset over that stupid comment? Then again, she wasn't quite sure she would've appreciated being called a ticking time-bomb. But she wasn't about to let Sara know that.

After Sara had blown up at the suspect in the interrogation room, she had ran after her and asked her what the hell her problem was. Sara was pissed-- _beyond_ pissed-- and flat out said that the husband was a liar. Catherine went on to tell her that she was being irrational and all the evidence said otherwise, but Sara refused to back down.

At that moment, Catherine had had a decision to make-- bend Sara over her lap and slap her ass until she stopped whining, or say something that would shut her up. Instead of smacking her silly-- which was what she really would've preferred to have done-- she opened her mouth and said she was like a ticking time-bomb with every one of her cases, just waiting to go off.

With a sigh, Catherine called out, "Sara, wait a minute."

Sara stopped in mid-step, but she did not turn around.

"Will you please turn and look at me?" Catherine asked.

Sara raised an eyebrow in confusion, but turned around as Catherine had requested. For a split second she thought she was going to be getting an apology.

"Gil put you and I on a 419 together," Catherine explained, not bothering to hide the tone of distaste in her voice as she held out the assignment slip. "Just try not to blow this one." _Where the hell did that come from?_ Catherine asked herself internally. What, she intentionally said nasty things to hurt people now?

Sara shot Catherine the coldest glare Catherine had ever seen. If looks could kill, she would've been on Doc Robbins' slab in a matter of moments. The cold icy look on Sara's face almost scared her. Almost.

"I think that would be impossible, seeing how you've already blown everyone in the lab," Sara growled back, snatching the assignment slip from Catherine's hand. She knew what she said was hurtful, and yet there was a tiny part of her that was patting herself on the back for coming up with such a smart comeback.

Catherine's eyes widened in shock. "How _dare _you! Do you _know_ how hard I've worked for _everything_ I have?"

"Of course," Sara shot Catherine a fake smile, silent fury still evident in her eyes. "I'm sure it's been a long day at the office for you on your back."

"You bitch," Catherine hissed before she could stop it. She was fuming now, and quite frankly right now she could care less about what words left her mouth, so long as they were as hateful and as hurtful to Sara as she was being to her. "I was not a _slut_! And even if I _was_, at least I'm not a cold-hearted bitch who's so desperate for companionship she has to go and pine after her boss!"

Now, the gloves were off.

Sara's hands had been balled into fists, the assignment slip curling and crumbling under her strength. At hearing Catherine's latest insult, she lost all control. She couldn't hold back anymore, and quite frankly, she didn't think she really wanted to.

Sara rose her arm up to throw a punch, but before she could land a blow Nick was there restraining her, holding her arm back with his own.

"Sara,_ stop _it!" Nick shouted at her, trying to hold her back as best he could, but Sara was strong.

"Let go of me, Nick!" Sara growled back, still fighting to reach Catherine. "I've been wanting to do this for a_ very _long time!"

Catherine stared at Sara in shock. She stared at her in shock that she would actually hit her. But then again, she had often times fantasized about slapping the brunette senseless whenever they got into arguments in the past. Today was no exception.

"This is exactly what I mean, Sara," Catherine explained, glaring at Sara just as hard as she was glaring at her. "You're going to compromise the case with that horrible temper of yours!"

"How would I compromise the case?" Sara spat, still struggling against Nick. "You can just fuck the Sheriff and then everyone's happy."

This time it was Catherine's turn. She tried to take a swing at Sara, but Warrick heard Nick calling after him just in time and was able to restrain her. Unfortunately, he wasn't as quick and Catherine managed to scratch her across the face.

"THAT'S _ENOUGH_!"

Everyone jumped at the voice of a very pissed off Gil Grissom standing in the middle of the hallway outside his office. Catherine stopped struggling against Warrick and Sara stared wide-eyed, absolutely mortified.

"You two better cut it out _right_ now, or I will fire you both," Grissom informed them. Catherine knew he was truly serious by his no-nonsense tone. "Go to your crime-scene _now_. Both of you, take your own cars. Take that time to cool off. If Ecklie knew about this, you two would be gone by the end of shift. You don't know how lucky you are."

As Grissom turned and walked off, Catherine and Sara both shook their way out of Warrick and Nick's restraining grasps and glared over at each other. They didn't say anything, but their eyes said exactly what they were both thinking: _That bitch._

Sara turned and walked off without another word, heading to the women's restroom to wash the bloody scratch on her cheek.

Catherine turned and headed off in the opposite direction to get her kit from the locker room. Once inside she entered her combination and turned the lock, opening it up.

She looked at her reflection in the small mirror attached inside. She ran a hand through her hair and let out a sigh, trying to take deep breaths to calm her pounding heart.

"Shit," she muttered under her breath.

Oh yeah, today was definitely going to suck.

--

Sara stepped out of her Tahoe onto the hot dry ground of the Nevada desert. The sun was scorching, her black tank top wasn't helping to relieve the heat, the air reeked of heat-rotted decomp and to top it all off, she had to work with Catherine.

It really wouldn't have been so bad if she didn't have to work with Catherine.

With a sigh Sara walked around to the trunk and popped it open. She slipped on a CSI ball cap and grabbed her kit and an extra bottle of water. She always kept one in her kit, but seeing how hot it was today, she had a feeling she was going to need it.

Sara closed the trunk and walked toward the taped-off crime scene where police officers were patrolling the area and a detective was standing interviewing the person who had found the body. Sara didn't recognized the detective and assumed he must be new.

"Sara Sidle, CSI," she flashed her badge to the officers around the tape and they granted her access. Once inside she set down her heavy kit and looked around for Catherine. She hadn't seen her yet which was perhaps a good thing.

Not that she wanted to see her.

Because she didn't.

But if she was going to be stuck at this remote location next to a rotting corpse on an 110 degree day, she'd be damned if Catherine didn't suffer here with her.

Sara started her scope of the body, placing a hand over her eyes to shield her face from the harsh rays of the sun. Even with her sunglasses on, the sun was forcing her to squint. She could just barely make out the outline of what appeared to be tire treads and thought she saw something silver trying to blind her.

She bent down beside the body and reached inside her kit for tweezers. Her hunch turned out to be right, and she smiled in satisfaction when she found that the glistening silver had been a shell casing.

Sara immediately looked up when a shadow blocked the sun from getting into her eyes. She discovered Catherine standing over her with her kit in-hand. She couldn't tell if Catherine was glaring at her because she just hated her guts, or if she was glaring because of the sun just as she had been.

"Decided to come and join me?" Sara asked, reaching inside her kit to grab a bindle for the evidence.

"Don't start," Catherine practically growled. "I got stuck in traffic. So are you going to tell me what you found or am I going to have to wrestle it from you?"

Sara snorted back a laugh at just the mere thought of Catherine trying to wrestle evidence out of her hands. She knew she would be able to win.

".38 caliber," Sara instead replied, holding it up for Catherine's inspection. "I only found one and no bullet. The bullet must still be inside our victim."

Catherine took the tweezers from Sara so she could inspect the casing herself, catching a glance of the bloody scratch just below her eye from their scuffle in the lab earlier. Her heart jerked a little in guilt, but she didn't focus on it long. "Has the coroner come yet?"

"No," Sara shook her head. "But from looking at the wound, it appears to be a single shot to the head that killed him. I'm thinking mob hit."

"Mob hit?" Catherine asked, confused. "We haven't had one of those in ages."

"It fits the MO," Sara explained. ".38 caliber weapon, single shot to the head, remote dump site, ligature marks on the ankles and wrists," she motioned toward the victim. "Several lacerations and defensive marks on the vic's hands. He was tortured and fought back."

Catherine stared at Sara for a minute, impressed. She fought the urge to compliment Sara on her analysis. After all, they were still made at each other. "Okay, so maybe it is a mob hit. Do we have any ID on him yet?"

Sara glanced around the body to find the front pocket and carefully slid a wallet out. "Johnnie Alvarez," she read from the driver's license. "He's a local."

"Yeah, a local drug dealer," Catherine nodded. "Gil and I worked a case on him recently. One of his clients mysteriously disappeared after they refuse to pay for the drugs. We suspected that he got the mob involved and had them kill him."

"And so... what? He refuses to pay up for the favor?" Sara asked. "I mean a drug dealer's got to have money."

"I don't know," Catherine shrugged. "Maybe he ran out of drugs." Sara shot her a look. "Hey, it happens."

Sara grabbed an evidence bag and set the wallet inside, sealing it up. "Well, whether the motive was money or not, his wallet is empty. It looks like they took the cash, but left the credit cards."

"Of course," Catherine nodded. "The mob is full of pros. They know credit card purchases can be traced, specifically purchases made on a dead man's card."

Sara got to her feet, dusting her slacks off as she did so. "I'll go let the detective know we may be dealing with potential mob involvement." Before she turned to leave, she added, "And incase you were worried, I won't screw this one up."

Catherine stared after Sara as she walked off to go speak to the detective and she rolled her eyes, looking back down at the body. Despite how annoying she could be, and despite how well Sara could get under her skin, she had a job to do.

"Detective!" Sara called out as she headed under the tape. "I need to speak to you."

The detective turned away from the witness he was interviewing to look over at Sara. "What is it, Sidle?"

"I think we have reason to believe we may be dealing with professionals," Sara explained. "Or, to be more specific, the mob."

At hearing this, the witness the detective had been interviewing immediately tensed and grew stiff. This didn't go unnoticed by Sara, although the newbie detective was clueless.

"The mob?" the detective asked with an incredulous laugh. "Are you serious? Why would the mob be involved in something like this?"

"That's a good question," Sara replied, staring directly at the witness who looked scared shitless. She maintained eye contact the entire time. "Do you know anything about this?" she finally asked.

The man continued to stare at Sara, as if frozen in place. He looked to be middle-aged and had a scraggly beard and dark eyes. Sara immediately focused in on the scratch under his eyes. Although then again, she couldn't really talk, seeing how she had one to match.

"Where'd you get that scratch?" Sara asked.

"Where'd you get yours?" the man asked, as if reading her mind.

"Lover's quarrel," Sara replied, saying the first thing she could think of. "Now how about you?"

The man shrugged casually. "I don't got to tell you people nothing."

"Actually Sir, if you refuse to disclose information about an ongoing investigation that constitutes obstruction of justice," the detective finally spoke up, as if reciting from a textbook. "And that also means--"

Suddenly the man had drawn a gun and had grabbed the detective, holding him by the neck in front of him as a human shield. He kept his gun pointed at the detective's head. It was a .38 caliber.

"Catherine!" Sara immediately shouted, drawing her own gun and holding it on the suspect. "Think about what you're doing," she then told the man. "If you kill us, there's not a jury in Clark County that won't give you the death penalty."

"If anyone of you tries anything funny, I'll kill him," the man warned, pressing the barrel of his gun against the detective's face.

Catherine turned around just in time to see someone holding a gun on their newbie detective and Sara holding her own gun on the man. Instinctively she reached for her own gun in her holster, but heard footsteps behind her and in a split second she was knocked upside the head and on the ground.

Sara heard the noise from behind her and turned around only to see another man standing over Catherine's limp body. "Catherine!" she instantly shouted.

The first man took that opportunity to grab Sara's gun when she wasn't paying attention. She quickly turned back around and they fought for it, but he had the upper hand and managed to deliver a hard sucker punch to her gut.

Sara gasped as she grasped her mid-section, fighting to regain her breath. The first man through the detective's body on the ground beside her, and she could tell that he was already dead.

Why hadn't they covered this in self-defense training?

"What the hell, man?" the second assailant-- the one who had knocked Catherine out-- was berating his partner. "You could've got our asses thrown in jail, you fucking idiot!"

"It's not my fault!" the first man insisted. "If I hadn't been sent with a shitty crew, then none of this would've happened, and the goddamn cops wouldn't be here right now!"

Sara watched the exchange, and now both men were in each other's faces, fighting like an old married couple. She waited for the right moment, calculated the angle, and then...

...She swung her leg up and nailed the second man right in the ribs as hard as she could. He collapsed, howling in pain, and Sara took that chance to run toward Catherine's fallen body to make sure she was okay.

As she was running she heard gunshots behind her, and felt a burning, stinging pain in her side, but didn't focus on it. It must've been a cramp.

Once she reached Catherine she shielded her body with her own and grabbed her own gun, taking aim. When she zeroed in on the first man who was trying to reload his own gun, she took a shot and hit him square in the chest. A pretty damn good shot if she did say so herself.

She then turned her attention to Catherine who was still lying in the middle of the ground, completely limp. She tried to shake her awake. "Cath, Cath, come on! Wake up!" But she didn't show any signs of waking up anytime soon.

"Shit," Sara cursed, panic starting to prickle at her brain. She was surprised it had taken this long for her to start panicking. Without thinking too much of it she slapped Catherine across the face-- fairly hard. She had to get her to wake up somehow, and besides, it might've been the only chance she ever got to slap her.

Catherine started to stir when the pain in her cheek began to register in her brain. She cracked her eyes open and stared up at Sara. "S-Sara? What the hell..."

"You bitch!"

Sara immediately jumped and turned around to see the second man staggering to his feet. Oh how could she have already forgotten about him?

"Stay back!" Sara shouted, carefully watching his movements. "I'm warning you!"

It was obvious the man wasn't going to listen to her. It was even more obvious when she saw that he was reaching for a gun that was on the ground.

But Sara was faster, and before the man even had a grip on the weapon Sara had shot him. He fell on the ground beside his partner and was dead almost instantly.

Sara stared at the two dead men on the ground, feeling her heart pounding violently. Her eyes widened at the realization of what she had just done. She just killed two people. She shot them dead without even a second thought. She took two people's lives.

Her gun fell from her shaking hand onto the dirt. She tried to fight her body going into shock. She felt faint and nauseated. The earth under her began to move, and she started seeing dots dancing in front of her eyes.

A loud groan from Catherine brought Sara to her senses and she immediately turned her attention back to her. "Cath? Are you okay?"

"The son of a bitch hit me on the head," Catherine muttered, wincing as she touched the giant bump on her head. It was already surrounded by crusted-over blood.

"Yeah, you were unconscious for a while," Sara nodded. "I think you have a concussion. What's your full name?"

"What the hell?" Catherine winced, shutting her eyes tightly shut against the glare of the sun. It was just making the pounding in her head ten times worse. "Am I on a game show?"

"Answer the question," Sara snapped. "What's your full name?"

"For Christ's sake, Sara," Catherine groaned. "Okay, okay, fine. Catherine Elizabeth Willows."

"Birthplace?"

"Las Vegas, Nevada."

"Occupation?"

"Crime-scene investigator for the Las Vegas Police Department."

"Favorite color?" Sara was just messing with her now.

"You have _got _to be kidding me." Catherine was not amused.

"Okay, that time I was just messing with you. Do you remember what happened?"

"I don't have a damn clue about what happened after I got hit, but I know what I'm going to be doing if you don't cut to the chase," Catherine hissed.

"Okay, relax, I was just joking," Sara rolled her eyes. "I was just checking to see how serious your concussion is. But judging from the bitchy look you're giving me, I'd say you're going to make a full recovery."

Catherine shot Sara a glare, but the pounding in her head kept her from saying something smart. "You win this round."

Sara smiled in triumph. "Good to know. I'm just going to go grab my radio from my truck and call for help, okay?" Catherine responded with a half-hearted nod, keeping her eyes closed.

Sara got up and headed for her Tahoe. She winced and grabbed her side, stopping to lean against the trunk once she made it. She didn't know why, but that damn cramp in her side was flaring up again, badly. She couldn't remember doing anything to cause a cramp, and she didn't think she had pulled anything, so why would she...

She pulled her hands away and noticed the blood for the first time. Oh, that was why.

Sara's eyes widened as she noticed the bullet hole in her side. The blood had been camouflaged by her black tank top. But why hadn't she felt the pain when she was running around and shooting down evil mobsters? She settled on having a different threshold for pain and adrenaline.

"Sara, what's taking you so long?" Sara heard Catherine's groan.

She rolled her eyes. "I'm coming, just hold on a second." Opening her trunk up, she saw the small first-aid kit she always kept on hand. Then, walking around to the cab, she opened the door only to discover the cord to her radio had been cut. "Damn it," she muttered. Slamming the driver's side door, she then noticed the gas tank had been slashed.

Sara quickly jogged over to Catherine's Tahoe only to find the same thing. She glanced over at the police cruisers but even from a distance she could see the puddles of gas underneath.

"Oh, shit." This was just perfect.

Sara turned to head back over to Catherine, but stopped herself. Catherine was hurt and she didn't know how badly yet. She had a concussion. Then, she looked at herself-- she had been shot in the side. She couldn't tell how badly she was bleeding because of her dark tank top. The pain was bad, but not unbearable. She was pretty sure she could take it.

And in the event that something happened, one of them had to be able to move. She knew that if she were to show Catherine the gunshot wound, she would freak out.

She reached inside her trunk and grabbed her CSI vest, zipping it up over her tank top. It would help to cover the blood and the giant hole in her side. Catherine would never know.

She headed back toward Catherine who was still laying on the ground and she tried to walk as casually as possible despite the pain in her side trying to flare back up. Once she was by her side she sat down beside her on the ground and opened up the first-aid kit.

"Did you call for help?" Catherine mumbled.

"Uh, bad news, Cath," Sara told her, grabbing some gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. "Our radios have been cut and the gas tanks on all of the vehicles have been slashed."

"You're joking," Catherine immediately said, thinking this must be some sort of sick Sara joke.

"No," Sara shook her head. "I need you to turn your head so I can clean your bump."

"You mean we're stuck out here until someone realizes that we're missing?"

"Yes. Now can you please turn so I can clean your wound?"

"On an 110 degree day in the middle of nowhere next to a rotting corpse?" Catherine continued, sobering up. Her concussion was nothing compared to the thought of spending the entire day out in the heat out stuck with Sara.

"Yeah. Turn your head."

"I can't _believe_ this!" Catherine exclaimed. "Just because Gil didn't listen to me. I have seniority, I shouldn't have to put up with this crap!"

Sara couldn't take Catherine's whining anymore and her side was beginning to burn like hell. "Jesus _Christ_ Catherine, _yes_! You're stuck out in the middle of goddamn nowhere with the one person who you hate the most in this world. Grissom has formed a pact with God and together they are punishing you. Now turn your head around so I can clean your damn bump!"

Catherine roughly turned her head to the side and instantly regretted it. The bump on her head wasn't very forgiving, but she wasn't about to let Sara know that.

Sara cleaned the bump on her head in silence except for the occasional "sorries" when Catherine winced. She cleaned away the dry blood and dressed the bump with a white gauze, ripping a piece of tape off with her teeth. Once it was in place, she sighed, leaning back on her haunches. "Okay, I think you're good."

"Thank God," Catherine muttered, rolling over to try and sit up. She managed to get into a sitting position fairly easily. This wasn't so bad and she only felt a little dizzy. She braced herself and began to get to her feet, but a sharp pain in her ankle told her otherwise and she all but fell into Sara.

"Cath?" Sara quickly asked, catching her before she could fall. "What's wrong?"

"I think I twisted my ankle or something," Catherine winced, squeezing her eyes shut at the pain. "It really hurts."

"Let me see," Sara told her, and without asking for permission removed Catherine's shoe and rolled her pantleg up over her ankle. She grimaced when she saw the blood.

"So?" Catherine asked, trying to act casual. "How bad is it?"

"Uh... well, Cath, the good news is you didn't sprain it..."

"So I can walk?"

"Not exactly," Sara bit her lip. "It's not a sprain. You were stabbed."

Catherine's eyes immediately went wide. "_What_ did you just say?"

"I said you were stabbed," Sara repeated. "You're not going to be walking on that ankle anytime soon."

"How do you know it's a stab wound? It could just be a cut." Talk about denial.

Sara sighed in frustration. "Because I know a knife wound when I see one, okay!?" Glancing around them, she spotted a bloody knife a few feet away. "I guess when you were knocked over the head, you were stabbed too."

Catherine stared at Sara, resisting the very strong urge to ask how she knew so much about knife wounds. Instead, she said, "Okay, well that's just great. What are we supposed to do?"

"Well, we can't just stay here," Sara told her, wiping some sweat away from her forehead. "It's only going to get hotter, and for all we know the suspect's buddies are on their way over." She unclipped her cell phone from her belt and checked for a signal. "And I've got no signal out here, so we have no way to call for back-up."

"Sara."

"So I would say the best thing for us to do is to try and head for the road. I remember which direction it was in when I drove up, so we should head that way. Maybe a car will drive by."

"_Sara_!" Catherine snapped, quickly losing her patience. "You have blood on you."

Sara blinked, looking over at Catherine. She then remembered that she still had blood on her hands from when she had examined her own wound, and when she wiped her forehead she must've got some on her. "Oh, it's nothing," she waved it off. "I think it's yours. You know, from your ankle."

"Are you sure?" Catherine was suspicious, and despite how much she was trying to deny it, she was concerned. "You're not hurt?"

"Just a few scrapes and bruises, really," Sara shrugged. "The most important thing is I can walk."

Catherine quickly caught on to where this was going. "You can't be serious... you can't be planning to carry me."

"It's our only choice," Sara told her. "Do you have a better idea? Because you're sure as hell in no condition to be walking right now, and if we stay here any longer we could be mob bait. Any suggestions?"

Catherine stared at Sara, unable to come up with anything. The truth was, Sara was right. She couldn't walk with her ankle the way it was, and if they stayed there to wait for back-up they did run a very good chance of getting gunned down by the suspect's friends. "Okay, fine."

Sara was shocked that Catherine actually complied, but felt a little triumphant nonetheless. "Okay, good. I'm just going to bandage up your ankle, and then we can get going."

Grabbing some more gauze and bandages from the first-aid kit, Sara felt a sharp pain in her abdomen and winced, trying to hide it from Catherine. Luckily her eyes were closed to shield them from the sun.

If she was going to be carrying Catherine around on her back, she wouldn't be able to go very far with a bullet hole in her side, and as much as she hated to admit it, the pain was beginning to become close to unbearable. She had to think of something fast.

Then she spotted the bottle of pills in her first-aid kit. They were strong painkillers prescribed to her years earlier after the lab explosion to help the pain in her hand. She hadn't needed them, so she still had an entire bottle full.

She looked down at the label. Six pills. She had six pills, and could take them when she needed them. She grabbed the extra water bottle next to her kit that she had brought with her and shook out two pills from the bottle. She swallowed them in seconds.

Catherine hadn't appeared to have noticed. Satisfied, Sara went to work bandaging up her ankle.

This could work.

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you guys**_** so **_**much for the amazing response for the first chapter of this story. I was so shocked at how many of you reviewed. It made my day! Here's the next chapter. Hope you guys enjoy it :)**

Sara wasn't sure what she had done to deserve this, but whatever it was must've been pretty damn bad to warrant this sort of punishment.

They had been stuck out in the desert for about an hour and a half now. Despite Catherine's several protests, Sara finally managed to get her to agree to let her carry her and they had started their slow trek toward the road.

The painkillers had kicked in relatively fast, which Sara was grateful for. She was certain that she wouldn't have been able to carry Catherine if her side wasn't completely numb.

Now all she had to put up with was Catherine's continous whining. She was seriously tempted to just drop her on her ass and leave her there.

"Put me down," Catherine said for the umpteenth time.

"No," Sara replied, not skipping a beat.

"Put. Me. Down," Catherine practically growled.

"No."

"For God's sake Sara, put me down! I'll just grit my teeth and bare it. At the rate you're moving we'll get to the lab next week!"

Sara stopped. "I can't believe you! You can't even walk and you're complaining about the person who's helping to save your life because they're moving a little too slowly for your liking?"

"We've only gone a mile or two!" Catherine insisted.

"In a heat wave," Sara pointed out.

"So?" Catherine continued despite how flimsy her argument was.

"With someone on my back."

"Please, Sara. I weight 110 pounds," Catherine rolled her eyes.

"Maybe," Sara nodded. "But let's just say you're a little... top-heavy."

Sara couldn't stop the smirk from crossing her face. She could practically feel Catherine's eyes widen.

"Wipe that smirk off your face," Catherine hissed. "That's not funny."

"Whatever you say, Cath," Sara snorted, shifting Catherine's weight on her back as they started to move again. She had to find _something_ to preoccupy herself with. They were in a pretty shitty situation and it helped to think of something to take her mind off of it.

When Sara had first lifted Catherine she was light as a feather and Sara figured she had to be in the neighborhood of maybe 115 pounds, if that. But as much as she hated to admit it, she was starting to get heavy, especially with the added weight of a small backpack she was carrying, and her foot was digging into her injured side every time they moved.

The painkillers were helping, but Sara could feel blood oozing out of her wound with every step she took. She just hoped that they could make it to the road soon.

"...Sara?" Catherine started, adjusting the brim of the cap Sara had made her wear. She has insisted on it since she was going to be taking the brunt of the sun's rays.

"Yeah?" Sara asked, panting to catch her breath as she squinted against the sun.

"...Why are we always fighting?" Catherine asked. Great time for an intervention, she knew, or perhaps a Kodak moment, but she didn't know how long they were going to be stuck out here and they were going to have to work together to make it through this.

Whether they liked it or not.

"What?" Sara asked, grunting with the effort of supporting Catherine's weight. Sweat caked her forehead and was dripping down the small of her back. That ticklish sensation on her abdomen was also uncomfortable. "I don't think now is a very good time for this conversation, Cath."

"Yeah, I know, but just hear me out," Catherine continued. They had to work it out sooner or later. "Will you be willing to do that?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Sara dryly replied.

Catherine couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes. Despite their predicament, Sara could still find a way to be a smart-ass.

"Okay, so let's get one thing straight right away," Catherine continued. "Do you hate me?"

"What?" Sara asked, confused.

"Answer the question, Sara. Do you hate my guts? Do you hope every morning when I'm crossing the street that a bus will run a red light and trample me?" Catherine asked. She knew it sounded pretty ridiculous, but her relationship with Sara was... well, pretty ridiculous. She had always been under the impression that Sara hated her guts.

"Of course not, Catherine," Sara shook her head, stopping for a minute to catch her breath. "Why would I hate you?"

"I don't know," Catherine shrugged. "But you've never exactly gone out of your way to be nice to me... I've just always assumed that you didn't like me."

"You've done nothing that would make me hate you."

"Then why are you always so nasty to me?" Catherine asked. "Why are you always picking fights and arguments with me to intentionally try and piss me off?"

"I think you're being a little hypocritical now, Cath," Sara pointed out. "You know I don't do those things on purpose. I do those things because you provoke me. Why are you always so nasty to _me_? Why do you always shoot me these dirty looks in the hallway, like I'm not good enough? Why are you always accusing me of not being able to do my job?"

Catherine's first instinct was to argue that she did_ not _in fact do those things, but when she stopped and thought about it, the sad realization hit her that she did.

She didn't know why she always said mean things to Sara to purposely upset her. She didn't know why she always shot her a glare across the hallways instead of waving or exchanging a friendly smile. She didn't know why she made Sara feel like she couldn't do her job properly.

Maybe it was because she was jealous.

Sara was a genius, anyone could see that. She always persued her cases with such passion and concentration. She had the highest solve rate of anyone in the lab, and next to Greg, she had been there the shortest amount of time. She always caught little things that they sometimes missed, and she never quit until she got the job done.

And not only did she have the brains, but she had the looks. She was extremely gorgeous and she didn't even know it. She could have anyone she wanted. Between her beautiful shimmering brown eyes and her charming gap-toothed grin, she had everything she needed to make anyone melt. Not to mention her body-- her sun-kissed tan, the adorable freckles on her arms, those long legs that seemed to go on forever...

"Cath?" Her voice brought her back to her senses. "Cath, you still with me?"

Catherine blinked, bringing herself back to reality. "Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. Did you say something?"

Sara stared at Catherine in disbelief, rolling her eyes. "Just forget about it," she mumbled as she turned back around and they began to move down the road once again.

Catherine immediately realized that Sara thought she hadn't been listening to a word she had just said. "Wait, Sara. I'm sorry, it's not that I wasn't listening. I heard everything you said." She hoped so, anyways.

"Okay, so then why not answer the question?" Sara asked, still pissed. It made her angry that Catherine felt she could shove her into a corner and demand answers, but every time she tried to do the same to her she was able to find a way out of it.

"...I don't know," Catherine sighed. "I honestly don't know, Sara. I don't know why I do those things to you. I know damn well that you can do your job, and there's no reason for me to treat you the way that I do."

"Have I ever done anything to you?" Sara continued, once again shifting Catherine's weight. "Did I do something to hurt you? Because if I did, I'm completely clueless as to what the hell it could be, but I'm sorry."

"No, of course not, Sara," Catherine shook her head. "You've never done anything to hurt me."

"Then why do you always act like you hate my guts?" Sara asked. It was Catherine's turn to be under the microscope now.

"I told you Sara, I don't _know_."

"That's not a good enough answer for me, Cath."

"Well it's the only one you're going to get."

Catherine's weight shifted so suddenly that she almost fell right off of Sara's back. Luckily she was quick enough and grabbed around Sara's shoulders before she could fall.

"What the hell are you doing!?" Catherine shouted.

"Contemplating whether or not to drop you on your ass and leave."

"You wouldn't dare," Catherine growled, her voice dangerously low.

"Like hell I would," Sara retorted. "If I have to keep putting up with your incessant whining my head is going to explode."

"Listen, Sidle-- you drop me, and you're going down with me."

Sara snorted back a laugh at that. "You think so, huh? I weigh about ten pounds more than you do, and I'm standing. You can't possibly gain the momentum needed to drag us both down. And even if you could, then there's the matter of calculating the angle of your landing so that I don't land on top of you. If I landed on you just right, I could possibly fracture your ankle and then--"

Sara couldn't continue. Catherine had wrapped both arms tightly around her neck-- not to choke her, just to gain the element of surprise-- and had started to shift her weight backwards toward the ground. Before Sara could comprehend what was going on, it was too late. Her feet were lifted off of the ground and she was heading straight backwards on top of Catherine.

"Shit!"

They were both on the hot ground now, and despite Sara landing directly on top of her, Catherine couldn't stop laughing hysterically. Sara immediately moved so that she wouldn't hurt her, but she didn't bother to wipe the glare off of her face.

"Shut up," Sara growled.

"What was that you said? Something about not being able to gain the momentum needed?" Catherine couldn't stop the giggles from escaping. Sara was bright red, and she couldn't tell if it was from the heat or if it was because she was blushing.

"Don't flatter yourself too much," Sara muttered, getting to her feet and dusting her pants off. She already felt stupid enough.

When Catherine's laughter finally subsided (which took far longer than Sara would've liked) she decided to apologize. "I'm sorry Sara, really. You're just too easy."

"Whatever," Sara mumbled. "Can we please get going now? If I recall correctly you said at the rate I was moving we'd be getting to the lab next week. I'd like to try for at least the end of this one."

Catherine rolled her eyes, but decided not to argue further. "Yeah, sure. Let's get going."

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thank you guys so much for your amazing reviews and response. You guys make my day. So here's a new chapter for you guys :D This one is rated M for a few themes, and I will be changing the rating of the story as such just as a precaution. I hope you guys enjoy this newest chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it :)**

"So tell me."

"Tell you_ what_?"

"Oh, I don't know," Catherine managed to shrug her shoulders despite her current position on Sara's back. "Your hobbies, your Lotto numbers, I don't care. Just tell me_ something_."

"What are you getting at here, Cath?" Sara asked, thoroughly confused.

"Well we don't exactly know each other that well, do we?" Catherine asked. "So we may as well fix that now. I mean we're going to be stuck out here for a while and all."

Sara tried to hide her look of disbelief-- Catherine waited until they were in a life-or-death situation to finally get to try and know her? Well she earned points for originality, she had to give her that.

"Fine," Sara muttered, grimacing as a drop of sweat dripped down her upper lip and landed in her mouth. "What do you want to know?"

"Well let's see," Catherine mused, glancing up at the sky almost dreamily. "Your parents did the deed, you were conceived, and then approximately nine months later a screaming, stubborn little brunette baby showed up."

Sara couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes. Leave it to Catherine to word something that way. "Don't forget 'gap-toothed'."

"Then I presume you were taken home from the hospital," Catherine continued as if she hadn't heard Sara. "How about you start there?"

"You want my entire life story?" Sara asked, incredulous. "_You_ really have the patience?"

"Hey, don't be a smart ass, Sidle." Catherine lightly kicked Sara's left side in a playfully scolding manner.

In an instant Catherine was dropped some four feet onto the ground right on her ass.

Sara let out a hiss of pain, sinking to her knees and grabbing her side painfully. Though it was just the slightest bit of contact, Catherine's joking had reminded her that her pain meds were wearing off, and fast. Panting for breath, she braced herself on the ground with one hand and looked over her other one.

_Oh shit._ There was blood.

She had noticed about an hour earlier that the bleeding had slowed down considerably, which was a great relief. It meant that she could stop dragging her feet as she carried Catherine to hide the blood trail she left behind them with dirt. Now it had appeared that the wound had opened back up.

"What the hell, Sara!" Catherine shouted, still laying on the ground. "What did I do to deserve that? I know I can be a bitch sometimes, but for god's sake I was just _joking_!"

For once, Sara was relieved that Catherine was pissed at her. That meant she hadn't noticed something was wrong yet. And if making sure Catherine stayed ignorant about it meant putting up with more of her bitchiness, so be it.

"Sorry," Sara mumbled, quickly wiping her hand off on her vest. "I guess I just lost my grip on you for a second there." She noticed the amount of blood just pooling on the ground in front of her and quickly dusted dirt over it.

"Yeah, you're damn right you lost your grip!" Catherine growled, struggling to get to her feet. "I mean I _do_ have a bloody stump of an ankle here, you know. I don't need you to add a broken ass bone to my list of injuries!"

"Catherine, quit being dramatic," Sara finally said, turning around to face her once she was satisfied that her wound was covered up. "You do _not_ have a bloody stump of an ankle. But, seeing as we're already sitting, we may as well rest for a little bit. Reach into that backpack and get the water bottles."

Catherine shot Sara a defiant glare, but she did as she requested and grabbed the backpack from off the ground, rummaging through it to find the bottles of water Sara had packed.

As Catherine was looking, Sara tried to fight back the involuntary wince. Damn, the pain was starting to get a lot worse much quicker than she had anticipated it would. She was going to have to take more pills earlier than she had wanted to.

"Here," Catherine said, tossing Sara a water bottle which she caught. "Though I don't really see the point of resting. The road block can't be that much further."

"But if we're dehydrated, we're not going to get much further," Sara reminded her, unscrewing the lid of hers and taking a long swig. She swished it around in her mouth, letting it soothe her dry throat. She couldn't remember the last time water had tasted this good.

"Yeah, I know," Catherine sighed, taking a small sip from her own. Since Sara had done most of the work, she wasn't nearly as dehydrated. "I just want to get home."

"I know you do," Sara told her, biting her lip to hold back her gasp as she reached across and grabbed the backpack from Catherine. "I do too. But we're just going to have to wait a little longer."

"Are you sure we're even going the right way?" Catherine asked, watching Sara rifle through the bag. "Because if we're not..."

"Yeah, I get it," Sara nodded, tossing out flashlights and spare batteries to find the small orange prescription bottle. "You'll kick my ass. But we're going the right way, okay? So no ass-kicking necessary."

"Fine," Catherine sighed. "What are you looking for, anyways?"

"Aspirin," Sara told her. "I have a headache and I know I packed a bottle of it in here somewhere." _Ha! There you are, you little fucker._

"Okay," Catherine shrugged, crossing her arms and laying her head down on top of them. She stared up at the evening sky, gazing at all of the stars that were already out that she never saw anymore from the city. "I want to get going again soon though."

"I know," Sara replied, popping two more pills in her mouth and gulping down the rest of her water bottle with them. Once she swallowed she let out a long breath, closing her eyes. She hoped they would kick in soon, because she wouldn't be able to walk with this kind of pain.

Brushing away some rocks and pebbles with her hand, Sara cleared a flat piece of dirt and stretched her long body across it, letting out a long sigh. It wasn't a bed, but with how exhausted she felt it didn't matter.

"Don't fall asleep on me," Catherine warned her.

"I won't," Sara shook her head, reaching for the backpack. She tossed it to Catherine. "There. You can use it as a pillow."

"What about you?" Catherine asked, taking it anyway and placing it under her head. She tested it with her hand to make sure it was soft enough. "Aren't you uncomfortable?"

"I'm fine."

"Okay," Catherine shrugged, deciding not to dwell on it long. "So... you never exactly answered my question."

"Which was?" Oh shit, she had already forgot.

"You mean you already forgot?" Catherine asked, not bothering to hide her smirk. "Jeez, Sidle. Nice memory you got there."

"Just spit it out," Sara mumbled, keeping her hand pressed against her side. Blood was oozing slowly out between her fingers and she had to fight back the nausea growing in her stomach. Despite her job, she had never done too well with blood.

"Fine," Catherine sighed. "What happened after you were born and taken home from the hospital?"

"I can't exactly recall my newborn memories."

"You know what I mean," Catherine rolled her eyes. "What_ can _you remember?"

Sara really wished Catherine hadn't asked her that. She remembered a lot of things-- some good, most bad. But she wasn't about to tell Catherine that, especially since they weren't all that close. Their relationship was so strained that she wouldn't put it past Catherine for her to go blab everything she said to her it she even decided to all over the lab.

The last thing she needed was for her friends and colleagues to look at her with pity in their eyes. She couldn't_ stand _that. It was always either absolute disgust or overwhelmingly condescending looks of pity. She had spent her entire life feeling like a victim.

She wasn't prepared for that to happen again, and she _definitely_ wasn't prepared to get those looks from Catherine.

"Sara?" Catherine asked when she didn't reply. What, was she_ dead_? Had she not _heard _her? "Hello? You still with me?"

"Uh, yeah, sorry," Sara quickly said, snapping back to reality. "Okay, so uh... what was it you asked? Something about babies?"

Catherine rolled her eyes. "I asked what you could remember about your childhood. Maybe it'll give me some clue as to how you got to be so damn stubborn about everything."

_Oh look who's talking, _Sara thought, restraining herself from actually saying it. She glanced down at her side and removed her hand for a moment to see if the bleeding had stopped. It was still slowly oozing out, but the pills were already kicking in which made the pain that much more bearable.

"You want to know about my childhood?" Sara finally asked. Catherine just nodded. "Uh... okay, well... the thing is..." Catherine raised an eyebrow. "...I don't really remember much from my childhood."

"Oh, bullshit, Sara," Catherine frowned. "Come_ on_. You can't expect me to believe that you don't remember_ anything _at all."

Sara chewed on the inside of her bottom lip. "...Well..."

"Well?"

"I do remember a_ few _things, I guess..."

"Okay," Catherine shrugged. "So what are they?"

Sara opened her mouth to speak, but stopped herself. She couldn't think of a fake story that sounded believable enough to fool Catherine. She was, after all, a CSI. And still, she wasn't about to tell her every little detail from her shitty childhood. Catherine could whine and nag at her all she wanted to, but she wasn't about to do that willingly.

"Forget it," Sara mumbled, closing her eyes. "Just forget it. This is stupid."

"Stupid?" Catherine asked, managing to lift herself into a sitting position. "_Stupid_? Wanting to get to know you is _stupid_?"

"Yes," Sara nodded. "Because you're just going to get pissed off at me about screwing something else up sooner or later, and you know it. So what's the point in trying to get to know me? You'll feel a lot better about yelling at me if you don't know anything about me."

Catherine sat staring at Sara in disbelief, her mouth hanging half-open. Was that what Sara truly thought she felt about her? That she was just someone she used to yell at and release anger on? She didn't know whether to be offended or hurt or both.

"...Sara..." Catherine started, thinking her words through. "I... I don't... that's not how I think of you... you need to understand that..." Then why did she always treat her badly? Catherine didn't know.

"Sure," Sara nodded, opening her eyes to glance up at the sky. "Sure, Cath. Whatever you say." Her voice was void of emotion, and Catherine couldn't tell if she was even being sarcastic.

She watched as Sara got to her feet and dusted off the backs of her dark jeans. Or maybe they were light. It was hard to tell in this light. "Sara..."

"Let's get going, okay?" Sara asked, though Catherine could tell it really wasn't a question at all. "If we get going now, we should be able to get to the road block before nightfall."

Catherine still wanted to push the issue to let Sara know that she really didn't hate her, but finally decided to give in with a reluctant nod of her head. "Okay. Let's get going."

--

Those pain meds were awesome. Sara couldn't feel a thing in her left side and since they had stopped to rest earlier, she wasn't feeling nearly as fatigued as she was before. Maybe she was right about what she had said earlier-- maybe they really _would_ make it to the road block before nightfall!

Catherine had fallen asleep sometime or another-- Sara wasn't sure when. Their bickering had stopped since they started walking again, so Sara figured she must've_ really _been tired.

In truth, she was relieved. She felt badly that Catherine felt badly, but at the same time, it meant that Catherine didn't have time to be curious about why she wouldn't tell her about her childhood.

And since Catherine was asleep, Sara was forced to focus on something-- really, the_ last _thing-- she wanted to think about at the moment: her undeniable feelings for the strawberry blonde.

Even though they had always fought with each other, had always butted heads, had always exchanged choices words with each other, she couldn't deny that the chemistry was there. Try as she might, she couldn't keep herself from noticing the obvious spark between the two of them.

She had noticed it the first time she had come to Vegas. The second she had walked through the door to that room and had set eyes on Catherine, she felt it. It had hit her like a slap in the face, and it got to where she couldn't even be in the same room with her without her heart sprouting wings and trying to flap its way out of her chest.

But that was then, and this was now. She had been naive then, stupidly optimistic. She had been just plain silly to think that she could ever have someone like Catherine Willows. She had made the same mistake with Grissom. After he had turned her down, she realized something.

No one could ever love Sara Sidle.

She was too fucked up, physically and emotionally, for anyone to ever be able to love her. From her screwed-up childhood, to her equally as screwed-up parents, to being the daughter of a murderer, to how ugly she felt on the outside, there was nothing left for anyone to be able to love.

She was just... broken. No one would ever want to come along and pick up the pieces.

Still forcing herself to keep on walking, Sara fought back the tears that were forming in her eyes as she glanced over her shoulder at Catherine who was still sound asleep. She looked peaceful. Even as she slept, Sara couldn't help observing her unrivaled beauty.

Those baby blues that made her heart sink every time they looked at her were closed. Those rosy pink lips of hers, the ones that she had imagined were kissing_ her _as she touched herself in the darkness of her empty apartment, were curled into some sort of smile as she rested her head on Sara's shoulder.

Sara wondered if she was having a good dream. She wondered if there was even the slightest possibility that maybe, by the grace of some higher power somewhere, that Catherine was dreaming about _her_. That maybe she felt the same way about her, and that maybe she too spent one too many nights alone at home, whispering her name as she slid her hand inside her wet panties...

"Speaking of wet panties," Sara muttered under her breath, shifting uncomfortably as she continued to walk forward. It was becoming increasingly harder to walk while she was thinking those things about Catherine. What had just started out as a slight throb had now become an ache, and it took everything in her to not drop Catherine so she could find some sort of release for herself.

Well, at least Sara knew she had a healthy libido. Even if she_ had _been shot, it didn't stop her from wanting to finger fuck herself in the middle of the desert.

Suddenly Sara stopped dead in her tracks. Her heart sank deep into her gut as she looked ahead at the sign just some fifteen feet ahead of her.

_Las Vegas City Limit._

"Fuck..." Sara whispered. After all this, after all those miles, after all those hours of arguing with Catherine about how they _were_ going the right way... they had been heading in the wrong direction all along.

"What is it...?" Catherine mumbled tiredly, starting to stir. "Are we home yet?"

"...Fuck," Sara said again, too stunned to say or do much of anything else. She just stood there in the middle of the highway, staring at the street sign in her own personal corner of Hell.

"Sara?" Catherine asked, finally opening her eyes. Sara never said "fuck", except for in her fantasies, so either something was wrong, or she was in the best damn dream ever. "What's going on?"

But Sara couldn't speak as she stared wide-eyed at the sign. After all that, she was wrong. She had promised Catherine it was only a little further, and she had been wrong. She had promised her it was only a little longer until she could go home and see her daughter, and she had been wrong.

"Sara?" Catherine asked again, waving a hand in front of her face. Nothing. She frowned-- it wasn't like Sara to just check out. Managing to climb down from Sara's back, Catherine limped her way in front of her. When she saw her blank gaze, she followed it and saw the sign she was looking at.

"...No..." Catherine said, trying to laugh. "This... this is some sort of joke, right? This... this can't be real. The guys are pulling some sort of joke on us, aren't they?" she asked. "...Right?"

Sara didn't say anything, her face completely pale. They had to go all the way back now. They only had one more water bottle. She only had two more pills.

This wasn't going to work.

It wasn't going to...

"_Answer_ me, goddamn it!" Catherine shouted at Sara, tears stinging in her eyes. Out of her anger she shoved Sara backwards and she fell over onto the dirt. "You got us_ lost_!"

Sara landed on her left side hard, and she instantly let out a cry of pain, grabbing her wound with both hands.

"This is all your _fault_!" Catherine continued, the tears running down her face now. "What if they find us and kill us? I can't leave Lindsey alone!"

"I... I'm _sorry_!" Sara shouted, gritting her teeth against the newest wave of pain. She could feel the bleeding starting up again, and this time the pain was worse than ever. "I'm... so... _sorry_!"

"You should be sorry!" Catherine continued to shout. "Because of you--" Then she saw it. The moonlight hit it just right, and she noticed the puddle of blood underneath Sara's body for the first time.

"...S-Sara?" she asked, her eyes widening in horror. "...Are... are you..."

**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you guys so much. I can't even begin to express how much your reviews and comments and emails mean to me. I'm so happy that you guys are enjoying the story! Anyway, I know you guys thought I was evil with the cliffhanger from last chapter, so I promise no more of those. I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter :)**

Sara's screams of pain were the most horrific sound Catherine Willows had ever heard in her entire life.

Somehow she had managed to lift Sara up off the ground-- kicking and thrashing-- and threw one of her arms around her shoulders to keep her up. Because of her bad ankle she couldn't carry her on her back, which made things a lot more difficult than they already were.

Sara's wound was bleeding so much now, and Catherine was internally berating herself for not noticing it before now. Either she had the world's worst observation skills, or Sara had been damn good at hiding it. And she_ knew _she had hid it from her. There was no way she couldn't have known she had been hurt... but Catherine would chew her out for that later.

Right now all that mattered was getting them both somewhere they could stay that was safe where she could clean Sara's wound.

"It's okay Sara, it's all going to be okay," Catherine continued to whisper to Sara in some attempt to get her to calm down. She didn't know exactly why she was whispering; she couldn't even hear herself over the sound of her cries.

"I'm so_ sorry_, Cath!" Sara cried as Catherine dragged her along.

"I know you are Sara, it's not your fault," Catherine tried to soothe her, glancing around the desolate darkness for some sort of sign. She had absolutely no idea what they were going to do. "Sara honey, I need to put you down for a second so I can get a flashlight, okay?"

"P-Please forgive me," Sara was sobbing now, hysterical. It didn't take a CSI to realize that she was going into shock, probably from blood loss.

"Sara, listen to me," Catherine told her, helping her safely lay down on the dirt. "This wasn't your fault, okay? But you need to calm down, otherwise you might pass out."

She watched Sara's face and saw that her pupils weren't dilating, that there was a thin layer of sweat starting to form on her forehead and above her lip, that her face was paler than usual. She needed to act fast if she was going to keep her conscious.

"Sara, look at me," Catherine ordered her, her tone gentle but firm. When Sara wasn't making eye contact, she gently placed both hands on either sides of her face and forced her to look at her. "Look at me, Sara... it's going to be okay. I promise. I know that probably doesn't sound like much coming from me, but you have to trust me, okay?"

"C-Cath, I'm s-so s-sorry." Sara's voice trembled, and just the sound of it broke Catherine's heart.

"Shh, I know you're sorry," Catherine soothingly whispered. "But right now that doesn't matter. I need to get you somewhere safe so I can take care of you, okay?"

She wasn't sure if she had gotten through to her or not, but Catherine didn't bother wasting anymore time and grabbed the backpack Sara had packed for them. She rummaged through it until she found a flashlight and flicked it on.

Leaning over Sara, she flashed the light on where she thought her wound was. Pushing up her CSI vest and her shirt as best she could, she shined the light on it and felt her stomach jerk. Blood was obscuring her view of the actual wound, but she could tell from just looking at it that it was a bullet hole.

"...S-Sara..." Catherine stuttered, glancing up at her face. "...How... how did you..." How could she have possibly managed to hide it all this time? The pain had to have been unbearable.

Sara's face was stained with tears and sweat, but her sobs were quickly dying down. It wasn't because she was calming down. She was slipping into unconsciousness.

"Shit," Catherine cursed. Carefully lifting Sara into a sitting position, she slid the straps of the backpack around her shoulders before hoisting her onto her back. She didn't care if her ankle was screaming at her to be amputated. Sara had done this, and she would too.

She moved the flashlight back and forth in front of them as she tried to walk down the dirt road. There had to be something around here... there had to be somewhere they could go. A shed, an abandoned building, a house of some sort. Anything would do.

"Sara, stay with me!" Catherine shouted, trying to nudge her awake. She could feel that her body was completely limp now. "Did you hear me? I said stay with me, Sara!"

She didn't get a response, and Catherine felt panic begin to swell in her chest. She couldn't do this, she was only one person. She feared Sara wouldn't be able to hold on long enough for her to find somewhere for them to take shelter in. Sara would die, and it would be all her fault.

Suddenly she felt Sara's faint heartbeat against her back. It was slow, and it was weak, but it was there. She was still alive.

No, she _could_ do this. She had to. She promised Sara it would all be okay, and Catherine Willows was a woman of her word.

"Hang on Sara, I'm going to get us out of here!" Catherine informed the unconscious woman, starting to sprint. She didn't know how she could possibly be running, but adrenaline was her ally now and she wasn't going to take that for granted. She had one last chance to make this right.

Catherine flashed the light on an old sign some twenty yards away and squinted to read the writing. The wooden sign was rotted and the paint was chipping away from years of neglect, but she was able to make out some of the letters. It was a sign for an old barn.

Flipping around, Catherine made a full 360 degree scope of the area. If there was a sign, then the actual barn had to be close by. She just had to hope and pray now that it hadn't been torn down yet.

She looked at the sign again, and saw the faded word "NORTH" inscribed on it. She scrambled for her brain to remember what direction they were heading in. Vegas city limits, from their crime scene, was west. They hadn't made any turns, so they had to still be traveling west.

Catherine turned off the dirt road and started running north. This was it, her last chance. If this didn't work, then there was no more hope.

She stopped when she thought she saw something in the line of the flashlight. She cautiously moved it across the area in front of her. If there was a wild animal out there with them, the last thing she wanted to do was provoke it.

She took a few small steps forward, keeping the light in front of her as a guide. Then she saw it-- the dark outline of a building not even 100 feet from where she stood.

"We're here, Sara!" Catherine exclaimed, running toward the building in earnest. "We made it!"

She knew Sara couldn't hear her, but she wasn't sure who the reassurance was more intended for-- Sara or herself.

--

The old barn left much to be desired, but Catherine wasn't complaining. Under these circumstances, the old beat up piece of shit seemed like a suite in one of Sam Braun's hotels.

She cracked the door open and flashed the light inside, making sure it was empty. Keeping the creaky door open with her foot, she walked inside and cleared a spot on the ground to place Sara. Kneeling down on her knees, she removed the backpack from her shoulders and dumped out its contents before placing it on the ground to serve as a pillow.

Carefully removing Sara from her back, mindful not to cause anymore damage to her injuries, she gently set her down on the dirt patch she cleared out, setting her head down on the bag. Sitting with her legs crossed in front of her, Catherine grabbed the second flashlight from off the ground and flicked it on, placing it in her lap for a clear view of Sara's wound.

"I know it's not exactly the Ritz," Catherine tried to smile a little as she used the other flashlight to look for first-aid supplies. "But it's better than nothing, right?"

The building was filled with cold, eerie silence, and Catherine had never felt more alone. If Sara was awake... if she could just open her eyes, Catherine knew she would know exactly what to do.

Finding a small first-aid kit Sara had packed, Catherine opened it up and removed a roll of gauze and a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.

Unfastening Sara's vest, Catherine removed it and slid it under Sara's body to serve as a makeshift bed.

"I'm sorry, Sara," Catherine apologized as she tore off a large portion of her blood-stained shirt. "I'll buy you a new shirt after this, I promise."

For the first time Catherine got a real view of the wound, and her heart jerked with a thousand different emotions at once. Anger, fear, sorrow. Anger for the people who had hurt her, anger for Sara at not showing it to her before, anger at herself for not noticing it in the first place. Fear for what was going to happen, fear of what could happen if she didn't do this right. Sorrow for how much pain she was in.

Opening up the small bottle of alcohol, Catherine squeezed a few drops onto a portion of gauze. She gently took one of Sara's hands in hers as she began to carefully clean the areas around the wound.

"This stuff must sting, huh?" Catherine asked her, knowing she wouldn't get an answer. Talking to the unconscious Sara was more of a way to keep her own sanity, and at the same time she hoped that just somehow, there was a little part of Sara that could hear her. "I've always hated it. I used to fall off my bike a lot when I was a kid, and I was convinced my mother only used this to torture me."

Dabbing up the excess dried blood, Catherine set the gauze aside and pulled out a small roll of bandages. Since there wasn't much to them, she tore off a piece of her own shirt with her teeth and gently placed it over Sara's wound before starting to roll the bandages around it.

"I'm going to need to lift you up," Catherine told her. Slipping one of Sara's arms around her shoulders, she hoisted her into a sitting position so that she could bandage her abdomen more easily.

Once the roll was empty, Catherine secured the bandages with a healthy portion of tape before helping Sara back onto the ground. With a sigh she grabbed their last water bottle and unscrewed the lid, starting to take a sip...

But she stopped, looking down at Sara. Sara needed the water a lot more than she did.

Grabbing some extra gauze, Catherine poured some water on it, careful not to pour too much. Once it was wet, she used it to rub the sweat off of Sara's forehead and her upper lip.

She glance down at her face, looking at her split lip from fighting with the suspects at the crime scene, at the swollen appearance of her eyelids from sleep deprivation. And then she saw the bloody scratch from their argument in the hallway that had happened just earlier that day in the lab. Her eyes filled with tears.

"...I'm so sorry, Sara," Catherine whispered to her. "I'm so sorry for everything. This is all my fault. I should never have been so horrible to you. Of course you can do your job, you're a hell of a lot better at it than I could ever hope to be. You're a strong, determined, intelligent CSI, and I'm so sorry that I ever made you think otherwise."

Quickly wiping at her eyes before the tears could fall, Catherine took a deep breath and let it out shakily. "I don't know why I was always so hostile toward you. If I hadn't been, maybe... maybe we could've been friends," she told her. "I guess I was just... jealous. I mean _look_ at you," she made a motion to her unconscious form. "You're beautiful... you're smart, you're funny... you've got everything going for you. Everyone at the lab loves you. And... I guess I was just hostile toward you because... that's everything that I've always wanted."

Dusting away old debris with her hand, Catherine cleared a place on the dirt to lay on, setting herself down right next to Sara. She quietly watched her sleep. Even as she slept, she was positively the most beautiful thing Catherine had ever seen.

Her brown eyes had always been one of her best features. Her cheeks were the same shade as her lips, a gorgeous rosy pink color. Catherine often wondered what it would be like to kiss those lips, just once. What it would be like, just once, to taste her, to revel in the feeling of her perfect body pressed ever so slightly to her own. She wondered what it would be like to look into those almond brown eyes, just once, and see that Sara felt the same way about her as she did about Sara.

"I've got a better chance of Ecklie doing something responsible," Catherine muttered to herself. Rolling over onto her side so that she was facing Sara, she reached out and gently brushed a strand of brown hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. Her scent hit her, and Catherine inhaled greedily, wanting to remember how she smelled. Despite all that had happened, she still smelled like heaven.

Letting out a sigh, Catherine slid her hand into Sara's and slipped her eyes closed.

--

Catherine awoke with a start, sitting up so fast the room spun. Feeling her heart pounding violently in her chest, she tried to regain her bearings.

Suddenly it all came flooding back to her. With a sigh, she sat up and looked down at Sara who appeared to still be sleeping. Grabbing one of the flashlights, she turned it on and checked Sara's wound to see if the bleeding had slowed. Blood had seeped through the bandages, but it appeared to have stopped for the time being, which Catherine was grateful for.

Shining the light on the contents of the backpack Sara had brought, Catherine noticed a small assortment of granola bars, and she couldn't help the smile that crossed her face.

_Sara. _She was always prepared.

Catherine grabbed one and tore into it, taking a big bite. Hey, it wasn't a free continental breakfast at a five star hotel somewhere on the Strip, but she wasn't complaining.

She chewed slowly, trying to make the meal last. She glanced up at the sky through the holes in the old ceiling and saw that it was still dark out. She figured it had to be early in the morning now, maybe 3:00 or 4:00 AM.

After three big bites, her breakfast was eaten. Catherine got to her feet and dusted off her jeans to stretch her stiff muscles. She winced as she put pressure on her ankle; she may not have noticed it before, but running around on it was finally starting to catch up to her. The pain had returned with a vengeance.

She heard a voice and quickly looked down at Sara. She was slowly starting to stir, and she let out a strangled moan.

Catherine was back by her side almost immediately, grabbing the rest of the water bottle she had opened up earlier. Placing a hand on her forehead, she gently rubbed back and forth. "Hey... hey girl, are you with me again?"

It took a minute or two, but Sara finally cracked her eyes open, just a little. Catherine's face instantly broke out into a smile.

"There you go," Catherine smiled, unscrewing the lid of the bottle and holding it up to Sara's lips. "Welcome back."

"...Cath?" Sara asked, her voice hoarse and raspy. It sounded foreign even to her own ears.

"That's me," Catherine nodded. "Here, drink this."

Catherine tilted the bottle so that Sara didn't have to strain to reach it, and slowly poured the water into her mouth. Most of it dripped down her chin and Catherine wiped it off.

When Catherine moved the bottle away, Sara took a few moments to survey the area. She couldn't remember exactly what had happened, but this place didn't look familiar. "...Where are we?" she hoarsely asked.

"In a barn," Catherine informed her. "You passed out, so you probably don't remember much. But Hell has seemed to grant us a reprieve with this place."

"You carried me here?" Sara asked, observing Catherine's handiwork on her abdomen. "How...?"

"I'm tougher than you think, Sidle," Catherine grinned.

Sara tried to laugh, but with the dryness of her throat it simply resulted in a violent coughing fit. Catherine grabbed the water bottle and held it back to her lips.

"Here," Catherie encouraged her. "Small, slow sips."

Sara did as Catherine instructed her until her coughing had subsided. Once it was over she was exhausted and she panted to try and catch her breath.

"You okay?" Catherine asked, concerned. "Are you in pain?"

"I'm... I'm in pain but... I'm fine..."

"Then you're not fine," Catherine informed her, searching through the remnants of the backpack on the dirt. "Where's that aspirin you took earlier?"

"It's... it's not aspirin," Sara told her, her breath still trying to escape her. "It's... pain meds..."

"...Prescription?" Catherine asked, raising an eyebrow. She saw the orange bottle and picked it up, shining the light on it so she could read. "_Vicodin_? How did you score _this_?"

"The... lab explosion..." Sara explained. "I didn't need them..."

"Sneaky," Catherine teased, shaking the bottle. "Two pills left," she shook the bottle. "The RX calls for six..." she trailed off, before looking down at Sara. "You've been taking them this entire time, haven't you?"

Sara didn't answer, her closed from the pain.

"You didn't want me to find out about the gunshot wound..." Catherine continued, the pieces starting to fall into place. "But you were still in pain... so you took the pills to help."

Sara finally cracked both eyes open, waiting for Catherine to yell at her, waiting for her lecture. But it never came.

Instead, she saw tears were running down Catherine's face and her eyes widened in surprise. "...Catherine? What..."

"You... you were in that much pain?" Catherine asked her, wiping at her eyes. "And you still carried me?" she asked. No answer. "_Why_? You should've _told_ me! I probably just made it a lot worse!"

"I didn't want you to worry," Sara whispered, trying to move her hand to offer Catherine some sort of comfort, but her arms and legs felt like weights.

"That's the last thing you should've been worried about!" Catherine told her, more tears replacing the ones she wiped away. "I never would've agreed to let you carry me if I had known!"

"Cath..." Sara softly told her, "It's not your fault... I chose not to tell you... it's my fault..."

"No," Catherine shook her head. "It's not your fault Sara, so don't you dare think that. You saved my _life_, for Christ's sake!" she told her, the tears overflowing in her eyes and running down her cheeks. "If you hadn't been there... if you hadn't stopped them, they would've killed me."

She jumped when she felt a hand on her own, and looked up to see that Sara was holding her hand. Even in her battered state, she could still manage to offer comfort.

"The way I see it, Cath," Sara whispered to her, "You've just returned the favor..."

Catherine tried to laugh despite her heavy heart, nodding her head a little bit. "I guess that's true," she conceded. Popping the cap off of the medicine bottle, she shook out the last two pills. "Here," she held them out to her. "Take these. They'll make you feel better."

"What about you?" Sara asked her, her face contorting into a frown. "You carried me here... your ankle must hurt."

"Jesus Sara, you were shot and you're worried about my ankle?" Catherine asked, but her smile never disappeared. "I just don't get you, you know that?"

Sara laughed a little. "Like I've never heard_ that _one before."

Catherine finally managed to get Sara to take the pills. Since she was having trouble swallowing, Catherine mashed them up and fed them to her with the rest of the water.

"There," Catherine sighed, tossing the empty bottle onto the ground. "Those should start to help soon. In the mean time, you should eat something," she told her, grabbing a granola bar from off the ground. Tearing the package off, she tore off a small piece and held it up to Sara's mouth.

Sara chewed the bite slowly so that she wouldn't end up choking again, before shooting Catherine a wry smile. "Breakfast of champions."

"Hey!" Catherine chuckled. "You're the one who packed it!"

"I know," Sara smiled, slowly slipping her eyes closed. "I'm just saying."

"You should eat a little more before you fall asleep, Sara," Catherine told her. "You need to regain your energy. You lost a lot of blood."

"...fuckin' thing..."

Catherine and Sara immediately both looked at each other.

"...Did you say that?" Catherine whispered, knowing she hadn't.

"No," Sara whispered back. "You?"

Catherine shook her head.

They both grew silent, listening.

"Did you get it done?" came one voice.

"Yeah, he's dead as a doornail," came the reply.

There were more faint voices, voices they didn't recognize. The sound of a car rolling to a stop filled the silence, and headlights were shining in through the old barn doors.

"...Oh fuck," Catherine whispered.

**TBC**

**A/N: Okay, I lied. Oops.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I know you guys get sick and tired of reading my sorries here, but I am truly sorry for making you guys wait for another update again. I've had piles of homework since school started back up. As always, thank you all so much for reading and reviewing the story. I know all of you were mad at me for the cliffhanger from last chapter, and I apologize. But I can't promise you that there won't be anymore :P Hey, at least I'm being honest this time. I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter.**

"Oh fuck... fuck, fuck, fuck..." Catherine chanted over and over again.

"Catherine?" Sara asked, confused. Or maybe that was just the pounding in her head. "What's going--"

"Shh!" Catherine hissed, looking around the dark barn for some sort of hiding place. Her eyes locked onto a tall stack of dead hay in the corner of the barn.

"The hell is this place?" another voice from outside.

"What do you mean 'the hell is this place'?"

"I mean it's a piece of shit!"

"I've got to move you," Catherine informed Sara, hearing her heart pounding loudly in her ears. "I found a place for us to hide."

Sara still had no clue what the hell was going on, but if Catherine was scared, she knew there was probably a good reason for her to be scared too. "Cath, what's--"

"Listen to me, Sara," Catherine whispered, quietly enough for them to remain undetected, but loud enough for Sara to be able to hear her. "I'm going to move you, and it's probably going to hurt, but you _cannot_ make a sound."

"What?" Sara whispered.

"I... I made a mistake, Sara," Catherine told her, swallowing the bile forming in her throat. "We're not safe anymore."

"Oh, I'm sorry that it's not your regular five-star shit hole," one of the men's voices from outside again. "But how about this, I'll get you a continental breakfast complete with a complimentary plate of 'Shut the fuck up'."

"Fuck you, man."

Sara's eyes widened when she finally realized exactly what it was Catherine was telling her. Her eyes flew to the doors of the barn and then back to her. "Do it," she finally whispered.

That was all the incentive Catherine needed. Getting to her feet, she leaned over Sara and hooked her arms under her shoulders, starting to drag her toward the haystack in the corner. The movement caused Sara's side to burn and she opened her mouth to cry out, but Catherine slid her hand over it just in time.

Sara's cry came out muffled, but it was still loud enough to be heard. Catherine froze when she heard the voices outside the barn stop.

"Did you hear that?" one of the men asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm not deaf."

"Is someone in this barn?"

"Shouldn't be. Maybe it's just an animal dying or something."

"I've got to move you _now_," Catherine whispered to Sara, staring her right in the eyes. She tried to mentally send Sara an apology; she knew this was going to hurt like hell. Sara's face was already caked in sweat and her eyes appeared glazed over.

Sara just nodded in response, biting down hard on her lip in anxiety. _Do what you have to do._

Catherine heard footsteps approaching and yanked Sara toward the corner as hard as she could. She lost her balance and tumbled onto her back, Sara landing directly on top of her. She kept her hand over her mouth as she dragged them both behind the haystack.

"I'm so sorry, Sara," Catherine whispered so quietly it was almost silent. Sara tried her hardest to nod, her head spinning with nausea. Her face glistened with tears.

The doors to the barn were suddenly kicked open. The sound was so loud in the empty space Catherine jumped.

"What the hell?" One of the men, the one who had kicked the doors open, had discovered the emptied contents of the backpack Sara had packed on the dirt. "I thought you said no one was here."

"I did!" another one insisted. Catherine figured he had to be lower on the food chain because he sounded afraid of what the other one would do to him. "I can't control what those homeless sons of bitches do, Joe."

Sara took mental notes through her pain, already planning on giving his name to Brass when they got back to the lab.

"Homeless, eh?" the man now identified as Joe was skeptical. He walked forward, dead hay crunching under his feet. He picked up the small first-aid kit Sara had packed. "Do hobos usually have medical supplies on them?" he asked.

When he didn't get a response, he threw it into the wall right next to the women's hiding place. Catherine shielded Sara so that it wouldn't whack her in the face, feeling her shaking in her arms. Or maybe that was her, she couldn't tell.

"I don't know Boss, I mean maybe one of them gots health insurance or somethin'." This man obviously thought he was funny.

But unfortunately for him, their boss did not.

In a second a gunshot rang out through the barn, following the sound of a body hitting the ground.

Joe put his gun back in his pants. "Anyone else want to be the fucking class clown?" he asked.

Catherine couldn't see the people he was talking to, but she knew she definitely didn't want to do anything to piss this guy off. He was serious.

"I didn't think so." Catherine watched as Joe walked further into the barn before he stepped on something that made him stop. He bent down and picked up Sara's bloody CSI vest. "What the hell is this?"

"Oh shit," Catherine whispered, feeling her heart sink deep into her gut. She glanced down at the confused look on Sara's face. "Your vest," she whispered, her face turning deathly pale. "I left it on the--"

"WHAT THE _HELL_ IS THIS!" Both women jumped at the sound of his voice.

"What do you mean, Boss?" one of the other men asked.

"You fucking idiots, do you have _any_ idea what this means?" Joe asked, fuming now. Catherine was just waiting for the steam to blow out of his ears. "This is a _cop's_ uniform. That means there was a fucking _cop_ here!"

Catherine saw Sara roll her eyes and she couldn't blame her. People just couldn't get it through their minds that they weren't cops. Still, she had to bite back her laugh at the display of Sidle attitude in this situation.

"And if there was a cop here earlier, who's to say they aren't still here?" Joe asked his group of silent men. He tossed the vest at one of them and it nailed them right in the face. "There's a lot of blood on that thing. They couldn't have gotten far."

Catherine and Sara immediately shot each other the same look. They were both thinking the exact same thing, and they both knew it.

"Don't just stand there, you fucktards!" Joe shouted. "Search the place! If there's a fucking cop here, I want to make damn sure they're not going to go rat us out!"

The men immediately split up and started searching every inch of the barn. A feeling of impending doom fell over both women. They knew it was only a matter of time before they were caught. Catherine's hiding place was less than perfect.

And at that moment, a piece of hay tickled Sara's nose, and she sneezed.

Unfortunately Joe had been the closest to their hiding place. Hearing Sara's sneeze, he motioned for everyone else to stop what they were doing. He kicked the haystacks away and stared down at Catherine and Sara, Sara who was covered in blood and laying in Catherine's lap.

"Well, well, well," Joe smirked, but it was unlike any sort of smirk either women had seen before. "What do we have here?"

"What the hell does it look like?" Sara managed to mutter, her eyes squeezed tightly shut from the pain in her side.

Catherine stared down at Sara in outrage. How could she say something so stupid? Now was anything but a time for sarcasm.

Joe's smirk quickly turned into a sick grin. "Hey boys," he called his men over. "We've got some attitude out of this one," he pointed to Sara.

"Don't you dare look at her like that," Catherine growled up at Joe, keeping both arms wrapped protectively around Sara's shoulders. She was terrified, but she wasn't about to let anything happen to Sara if she could help it.

The punishment she received was so swift and quick that it was a blur. Catherine didn't have time to react, she only had time to feel the pain from the hand that connected with her face.

"I don't believe you get to tell me what to do, you little blonde bitch," Joe hissed. "Which one of you is a cop?" he then asked.

Catherine and Sara both looked at each other, contemplating their answers. They were both tempted to say they weren't with the police department, but they didn't feel Joe would buy it because he had discovered Sara's vest already. Then they were tempted to just explain that they were CSIs, but that didn't sound much better. CSIs were still law enforcement, and worse, they had been the CSIs who had responded to their crime and had killed two of their partners.

"Answer me!" Joe shouted, and Catherine winced at the harsh sound of his voice. It reminded her of Eddie.

Sara looked up at Joe, and then up at Catherine. She looked terrified, and Sara knew what thoughts were probably running through her mind; she was probably seeing her entire life flash before her eyes, she was probably thinking about what would happen to Lindsey if she were to be killed, she was probably thinking about the boys at the lab that she would be leaving behind.

And then Sara looked at herself. What would she be leaving behind? If something happened to her, who would honestly miss her?

Her cell phone provider and landlord might.

Would anyone else? Probably not.

The boys might be bummed for a day or two, but Catherine would know just how to cheer them up.

Nothing. The answer was nothing.

She didn't even have a pet in her apartment that she had to worry about leaving behind.

If something were to happen to her, she would be leaving behind nothing.

She had nothing to lose.

This thought filled Sara with the courage she needed to make her decision. The decision that Catherine's life was far more important than her own. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized just how painful it would be if something were to happen to Catherine.

"I'm a cop," Sara finally said, looking back up at Joe. She hoped her voice sounded more confident than last time. "I'm the one."

Catherine's eyes immediately went wide in shock. "Sara, don't! You--"

"Catherine, stop," Sara interrupted her, trying to take deep breaths to regulate her breathing. "There's no use trying to protect me. You're a crime-scene tech, I'm the cop. I'm the one with the gun."

Joe looked at Sara, his grin returning so big and so wide that it showed off his surprisingly white teeth. "I thought so," he nodded. "Only cops would be cocky enough to run their mouths when they're looking death in the eye."

"She's not a cop!" Catherine insisted. "She's _lying_! She's a CSI, just like I am!"

"Officer," Joe sounded bored. "Would you mind telling your little friend to shut the hell up?"

Sara glanced over at Catherine, making eye-contact. "Willows, I'm warning you," she finally said, trying her hardest to stay calm. "As your superior, I am ordering you to back down."

Catherine stared at Sara in shock, speechless. Why was she doing this? Why was she intentionally putting herself in harm's way?

"That's better," Joe grinned, waving his men over. Two walked around the fallen haystacks toward Catherine. "Put her in the other corner," he ordered them, pointing to a dark corner of the barn by the doors. "As for you," he then said to Sara. "I have a bone to pick with you."

"Call them off," Sara immediately said, sending the two men who were walking toward Catherine death glares. "My CSI doesn't get hurt." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Fine, she won't get hurt," Joe rolled his eyes. "For now, anyways. Boys, tie her nice and tight." He tossed one of them a roll of duct tape. "There's some rope in the trunk," he then told them.

"Come on honey," one of the men was grinning devilishly at Catherine. "Don't be afraid. We'll be gentle."

"Watch it," Catherine growled, shaking her arm out of his grasp. She looked down at Sara. "Why--"

Sara didn't say anything, she just stared Catherine in the face, never breaking eye contact. _I need you to trust me on this one._

Catherine bit her lip, unsure, but she finally nodded, getting Sara's message. Moving out from under Sara, she started to get to her feet but one of them yanked her up by her arm roughly instead.

"Hey, watch it," Joe snapped at them. "Remember what our friendly police officer said? We may as well honor her last request."

The man who had grabbed Catherine grunted in protest, but did as he was told and loosened his hold around her arm.

"What the hell do you mean 'last request'?" Catherine was horrified at just the thought. "You're not--" She looked at Sara, who was now staring at the ground rather than her, and then at Joe who looked entertained enough to be watching sports on television.

Catherine felt her blood run cold as the realization hit her. "You're... you're going to kill her."

Joe chuckled in response, applauding Catherine as the words left her mouth. "I guess I can see why you're a CSI, although a pretty stupid one. You didn't actually think we were going to let a cop live, did you?"

Catherine's eyes went wide. "No, you can't! You can't kill her!"

"We can't?" Joe asked, raising an eyebrow. "I do believe we can." He grabbed the gun that had been in the waistband of his pants and waved it for indication. "That was the deal."

"...D-Deal?" Catherine whispered, looking at Sara who was still staring at the ground. "_Deal_?" she repeated, more outraged than ever. "What the _hell_ did you agree to!?" she shouted at Sara, trying to move toward her but the men holding onto her refused to let her.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Joe sighed, shaking his head. "We promised not to hurt you. In return, we kill her. It's quite simple. We are the mob, after all. We specialize in making deals."

Catherine's knees gave way, but the men holding onto her kept her from falling. She looked over at Sara, her form becoming blurred from the tears forming in her eyes. She felt her hands and legs shaking.

How could she not have seen what Sara was planning?

"S-Sara?" she whispered in disbelief. She hoped that this wasn't true, but she knew it was.

Sara finally looked up from the ground and made eye contact with Catherine. She shot her a small smile for reassurance, but the smile didn't touch her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Catherine."

She looked up at Joe and nodded. He grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, dragging her to the middle of the barn. Once there he kicked her legs out from under her and forced her to her knees. "Get me some rope," he ordered his men and one of them walked out of the barn to go get it.

"No, let her go!" Catherine shouted, in absolute hysterics. She knew what they were going to do, and the whole situation felt like a nightmare. A nightmare she couldn't wake up from. "Don't!" When she found she wasn't getting through to Joe who had one hand gripping the back of Sara's neck and the other on his gun, she tried to appeal to Sara. "Sara, please," she begged, warm tears spilling down her cheeks. "God Sara, please, don't do this..."

A length of rope was tossed to Joe from one of his men and he unraveled it, kneeling down beside Sara on the ground. Grabbing both of her hands, he held them together and tied the rope around them in a tight knot.

Sara glanced over at her as best she could. "I don't want you to watch, Catherine," she told her. "So when it happens, I want you to close your eyes, okay?"

"God, Sara, _no_!" Catherine was sobbing now. "You can't! You can't _do_ this! You can't do this to the boys!" She was just hanging off the ground now, both men holding her arms up, her face a mess of tears and sniffles. "You... you can't do this to _me_."

Sara's eyes immediately flicked back in Catherine's direction. She winced when she felt Joe's hand on her neck, forcing it to stay straight. But her eyes never strayed.

Catherine looked up when she felt eyes on her and found Sara staring at her. She glanced at her through her red puffy eyes, trying to blink back more tears unsuccessfully.

"...What did you say?" Sara whispered to her, her voice barely audible.

Catherine tried to take some breaths so she could speak coherently, her chest fluttering as she did so. "You... you can't do this to me, Sara..." she whispered. "You can't leave me... i-if you do..." the tears started to come faster again. "It'll kill me. Jesus Christ, _look_ at me, Sara, I'm falling apart!"

Tears sprung immediately sprung to Sara's eyes. Catherine was crying for her. Of all the things she could be crying for, she was crying for_ her_.

Suddenly she realized that if something happened to her, she_ would _be leaving behind something. Something more important to her than anything else in the entire world.

"...I won't leave you, Cath," Sara told her, shooting her one of her famous 'Sara smiles'. "If you don't want me to, I won't leave you alone."

Catherine shook her head, sniffling back more of her tears. "I don't want you to, Sara. Not ever."

"That's it," Joe snapped, holding his hand out for more rope. One of his men tossed him some. "I think that's more than enough time for your final goodbye, sweetheart," he told Sara, unraveling the second length of rope.

But suddenly Sara started struggling, and refused to make it easy for Joe to tie the rest of the rope. She just needed enough time to think of a plan. She just needed enough time to stall him.

"Stop resisting," Joe demanded, smacking her upside the face. When that didn't stop her, he cocked his gun and pointed it at Catherine. Sara immediately stopped struggling.

"Sara, don't stop," Catherine quickly told her. "Don't stop because of me!"

"If you resist once more, a bullet goes through her head," Joe warned Sara. Sara knew he was serious, and didn't want to take any chances. She wasn't about to take any risks with Catherine's life. "That's better," he grinned when she grew still. He linked the second length of rope around her midsection and then her hands, pulling the knot tight.

Sara cried out in agony as the rope bit into her injured side. She felt blood starting to seep through Catherine's makeshift bandages from earlier and her vision started swimming.

"Stop it you bastard, you're _hurting_ her!" Catherine screamed, more tears springing to her eyes.

Joe looked over at Catherine, his evil grin widening. Instead of listening to her, he pulled the knot tighter, and Sara's screams grew louder.

"_Stop it_!" Catherine screamed at him, but she knew the point was moot. They didn't care what she wanted them to do.

Getting to his feet, Joe moved his gun away from Catherine and instead held it against Sara's head. "What is your name?" he asked her.

"Don't you point that gun at her!" Catherine shouted. A hard sucker punch to her gut winded her and she gasped for breath.

"Thank you," Joe rolled his eyes, nodding at one of his men. Looking back down at Sara, he repeated his question. "What is your name?"

"S-Sara," Sara replied, her body shaking to fight going into shock. "S-Sara S-S-Sidle..."

"Is that Officer or Lieutenant Sidle?" Joe asked.

"What the hell difference does it make?" Catherine gasped, hurting but trying to buy Sara more time.

"So I know which tombstone to send flowers to," Joe shot back. That shut Catherine up.

"O-Officer..." Sara whispered.

"Okay, Officer Sara Sidle," Joe nodded. "Were you the one who shot my partners at your little crime-scene?"

Sara barely managed to nod her head.

"And so in return, I am going to execute you," Joe informed her, clicking the hammer on his gun. "And then I am going to execute your little blonde friend."

Sara's eyes immediately went wide, that one statement managing to register through the fog of her mind. "You said you wouldn't hurt her!" she shouted.

"Yeah, that's another thing the mob specializes in," Joe grinned. "Breaking promises." Standing directly over Sara, he pressed the barrel of his gun firmly against her head. "But I think it's time now to avenge my fallen men."

Catherine looked at Sara, on the verge of hyperventilating. How the hell were they supposed to get out of this?

"I-I'm... sorry, Cath..." Sara whispered to her. "It... it looks like I'm going to have to leave you..."

"Don't say that!" Catherine shouted, finally able to breathe again. "You're not going _anywhere_ except home!"

Sara smiled at Catherine, before looking down at the ground. "Do me a favor," she whispered.

"Run."

_BANG!_

**TBC**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: ducks flying objects I know, I know. Almost two months without an update and I left you guys with a cliffhanger. But I'm not evil, I promise, I'm just a teenager in high school. I am drowning in homework right now and haven't had a lot of time to write, and then that was combined with writer's block. But as always, thank you all so much for your reviews and comments and I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter :)**

_BANG!_

"SARA!"

Catherine had squeezed her eyes tightly shut the second the gunshot rang out through the hollow space. She didn't want to watch Sara die. A sob caught in her throat as she envisioned Sara, slumped over on the ground surrounded by a pool of her own blood. Even though her eyes were not open, she felt just as sick and nauseated as she would have if they were.

"FUCKING BITCH!"

Catherine snapped her head up at the voice. If Joe had killed Sara, why was he...

Catherine's eyes widened when she saw Joe was on the ground, clutching his bleeding foot with both hands. Sara was suddenly standing over him, her gun in hand. It was obvious that somehow, by some miracle, she had gotten Joe to shoot himself in the foot with his own gun.

"You fucking BITCH! Just wait until I..."

"Shut up!" Sara shouted, kicking his gun over to Catherine, who picked it up. Her hands were shaking as she fingered the trigger of her service weapon, but somehow she had managed to find the strength to get to her feet. "If you don't want me to shoot your other foot, you'll keep your mouth shut!"

Catherine's eyes widened when she was finally able to comprehend the fact that they both were not dead. The men who had before been restraining her were now backing away, cautious. They apparently didn't have any weapons. It was only their boss that she and Sara had needed to be worried about.

"Catherine," Sara rasped out, keeping her gun pointed at Joe. "Come here."

Catherine limped toward Sara, not needing to be told twice. The wound on her ankle was burning, but it was worth it to be by Sara. Holding up Joe's gun, she kept it aimed at Joe's accomplices.

"...Sara?" Catherine whispered, still stunned and unable to form complete sentences. "How...?"

"Listen, we need to get out of here," Sara told her, keeping her eyes fixed on Joe, aware of any slight movement he made. If he caught her off guard, even if just for a split second, she knew she wasn't strong enough to fight him off. He would overpower her in a matter of seconds, and they would be right back to square one. "We need to get out of here and we need to continue on into town."

"But Sara..." Catherine shook her head. "How are we going to make it? You're hurt enough as it is and I can barely walk."

Sara contemplated this, before nudging Joe with the toe of her boot. "Give me your keys."

"Fuck you," Joe hissed, blood from his wound still seeping through his fingers. "You think I give a shit whether or not you two bitches get out of here alive?"

At that moment Sara's face darkened, and for a split second Catherine was scared of her.

Clicking the hammer on her gun, Sara pointed the barrel directly at Joe's head, her finger fixed on the trigger. "Now listen to me, you son of a bitch," she growled. "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but I'm sick of putting up with your _bullshit_. We have been out here for 15 hours and we're going to get home, one way or another." Catherine glanced down at the hand Sara was holding the gun with, and it was steady. "So _GIVE_ me the goddamn keys!"

Joe stared at Sara, looking terrified for a second, before his lips curled into a cold sneer as he chuckled harshly. "Look boys, we've got a regular vigilante on our hands," he smirked. "Honey, you can threaten me all you want but I know you too well now. I know you well enough to know that you won't pull that trigger."

Sara stiffened, and this didn't go unnoticed by Joe. Panic began to prickle at Catherine's brain. She knew Joe was right-- Sara didn't have it in her to take a person's life in cold blood, only in self-defense. But if he knew that, it was just another weapon he could use against her.

"You want to test your luck?" Sara asked, putting on her best poker face, although Catherine noticed her trigger hand suddenly wasn't quite so steady. "Go right ahead, I'm not stopping you."

Joe smirked, glancing down at the bleeding wound on Sara's abdomen and then her face. "Honey, I don't need to test you. The blonde was right; you're not a cop. You're just a crime-scene tech. You've probably never even drawn your weapon before now. And from how much blood you're losing right now, do you honestly think you'd be able to aim?"

Catherine followed Joe's gaze to Sara's abdomen, and she gasped. There was a steady flow of blood oozing from the wound now, and she noticed how deathly pale her skin was looking. There was no way she could be standing on her own, not without help... adrenaline. The only thing keeping her on her feet right now was adrenaline. When it ran out, she was certain she would collapse.

"I said _shut_ up!" Sara shouted, her trigger hand shaking more noticeably now. "Now give me your goddamn keys before I pull the trigger."

"I already told you, honey. You just don't have the guts. Why don't you hand me the gun and I'll put you both out of your misery? Then you won't have to worry about-- FUCK!"

Another gunshot rang out and Joe clutched his other foot, screaming bloody murder, calling Sara every bad word he could think of off the top of his head. Sara got down on her knees and reached into his pocket while he was clutching his foot and removed his car keys, tossing them to Catherine.

"Let's get out of here," she told her, slowly walking toward the exit of the barn, crimson blood drops leaving a trail behind her frail frame. The men who before had acted so tough suddenly moved out of Sara's way as if she were poisonous, afraid that they would suffer the same fate as their idiot boss had.

Catherine followed Sara out of the barn, looking around for the car to match the pair of keys she held. She hadn't even realized that she had passed Sara until she heard the thud of a body hitting the ground. Startled, she turned around and saw that the adrenaline had finally run out, and Sara had collapsed just outside the barn, her body too exhausted to fight anymore.

Catherine instantly sunk to her knees, lifting Sara's head into her lap. She was unconscious again and her skin felt like ice despite the rising temperatures of the Vegas desert. Catherine was truly terrified; after all this time on her feet, after all the blood she had lost, was it even possible that Sara could regain consciousness?

"Sara, you have to wake up," Catherine ordered her, shaking her limp shoulders. "Come on Sara, don't leave me now. You can't do this. Not after all the shit we've been through together. We've come too far to stop now!"

Despite her pleads, Sara didn't open her eyes. Her breathing beginning to quicken and on the verge of a panic attack, Catherine shook her shoulders more violently, hoping to stir some sort of a response. "Wake up, goddamn it! Wake up and yell at me for being a bitch to you! You still have to yell at me for being so awful to you!"

But Sara's eyes didn't open. She didn't shoot Catherine one of her infamous Sidle death glares as she gnawed on the inside of her bottom lip, opening her mouth just enough to make the gap between her front teeth visible. She never moved.

"...Sara?" Catherine whispered, the realization that Sara might actually be dead starting to sink in. Placing two fingers against her neck, she felt for a pulse, hoping, praying, that she would find one. She still had so much to atone for. It couldn't end like this. They were just about to get out of here. They were just about to go home.

Catherine's eyes widened when she didn't feel a pulse against her fingertips. Pressing her ear against her chest, she listened for a heartbeat, choking on a sob that had arisen in her throat when she didn't hear one.

"You're not going to fucking die on me, Sara!" she screamed at her, pressing her palms over her chest as she started heart palpitations. "You're not getting out of this that easily, you hear me? _Open your fucking eyes_!"

Catherine pressed up and down on Sara's chest, struggling to remember the CPR lessons her mother had taught her from her student nurse classes. Tears blurred her vision as she watched Sara's face for any signs that she was still alive.

Pressing her ear back to her chest, more tears spilled down Catherine's cheeks when she still didn't hear a heartbeat.

So this was it? This was going to be how it ended?

"LIVE, GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!" Catherine screamed at the top of her lungs, angrily pounding her fists into the dirt. "YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Her shouting hadn't stirred a response, either. Catherine stared down at Sara through blurred vision, vision blurred through tears, as her shoulders wracked violently with sobs. She spotted Joe's gun out of the corner of her eye and grasped it in her hand, holding the muzzle against her right temple. Leaning over Sara's frail body, she slowly bent down and kissed her lips, ever so softly, as her finger began to squeeze the trigger on the gun.

How was it fair for Sara to die because of her and for her to keep on living?

As her finger eased down on the trigger, and Catherine welcomed the darkness about to overtake her, she looked down at Sara's pale body and saw two brown eyes looking back at her.

"Cat..."

Catherine's eyes widened as she gazed down at Sara. There was no way she could be conscious. "S-Sara?"

"LVPD, FREEZE!"

Startled, Catherine squeezed the trigger.

--

"...Cath... Cath, come on, wake up... come on, girl. You're having a bad dream..."

Slowly she cracked her eyes open, only to squeeze them shut again from the harsh blinding lights overhead. Letting out a groan, she blindly felt around for the source of the comforting voice. "Sara?" she moaned.

"Cath, it's Warrick. You had another nightmare," Warrick informed her, taking her hand in his. "You're out of it. I'm going to call the nurse and tell her to lower the dosage of your meds."

"Wait!" Catherine squeaked, yanking Warrick back down into his chair as he tried to stand up. "...What are you talking about? What the hell is going on? Where _am_ I? Where's Sara?"

Warrick bit his lip. "You're at Desert Palm, Cath. You've been here for the past two days."

Catherine raised an eyebrow. "How the hell did I end up here? Why aren't I dead? Sara and I were both stuck out in the middle of nowhere!"

"We found you both just in time," Warrick told her, gently gripping her hand between his. "When the EMTs were loading you two into the ambulances you passed out. Do... you honestly not remember anything, Cath?"

Catherine paused, scrambling her brain for answers. She faintly remembered yelling at God, and then she remembered pressing the cool steel barrel of a gun against her head...

"...Cath..." Warrick sighed, giving up. "Catherine, you almost shot yourself. If Sara hadn't moved the gun away just in time, you would probably be dead."

Catherine's eyes widened. Everything was fuzzy. She couldn't remember anything past pressing the gun to her head. But as she scrambled her brain for details, she thought she could remember the sight of two brown eyes staring up at her.

But how? She had been so sure that Sara was gone. She had watched her die right in front of her eyes. She couldn't feel a pulse or a heartbeat and she was sure she wasn't breathing. She had lost so much blood. How could she possibly still be alive? How could she have possibly been staring at her?

How could she have possibly managed to save her life _again_?

"Sara!" Catherine suddenly exclaimed, bolting upright in her bed. "How is she? Please tell me she's okay. What did the doctor say? Is she sleeping? Has she already been released?"

The silence that followed chilled Catherine to the bone, and she was filled with the same fear that had gripped her when she thought she had been watching Sara die. "Goddamn it, Warrick! Tell me about Sara!"

"...She's in a coma, Cath. She hasn't woken up once since she was brought to the hospital," Warrick told her. "The doctor... said she suffered severe blood loss and internal bleeding in her stomach. She's already been in surgery twice. They... said they're not sure when she's going to wake up."

Catherine felt her blood run cold. She suddenly felt light-headed, and was faintly aware of the heart monitor behind her beeping erratically. She thought she heard Warrick yelling for help just as the room started spinning out of control and everything went black.

--

She awoke with a start. Hoping that everything she remembered was just a horrible nightmare and that Sara was really fine, she was dismayed when she opened her eyes to the same white hospital room she was in before. She was hoping that she had just fallen asleep on the couch in the break room and when she woke up she would see Nick and Warrick arguing while Sara sat in the corner sipping a hot mug of coffee and looked over a case-file.

Realizing that this wasn't going to happen anytime soon, Catherine dropped back onto her pillow, staring helplessly up at the ceiling. Nothing had changed. She was still stuck in this horrible place. She still felt as hollow as she had before. Sara was still in a coma.

Feeling a light pressure against her side, Catherine looked down and saw that Lindsey was on the bed with her, her head pressed against her abdomen. She was sound asleep, both arms wrapped around her mother's waist.

The sight brought involuntary tears to Catherine's eyes. Placing a hand on her small daughter's back, she rolled over onto her side so that she was facing her and pulled her closer, wrapping her arms tightly around her. Warm tears spilled down her cheeks as she buried her face against her daughter's small neck, audible sobs forcing her body to shake.

The noise woke Lindsey who tried to move to look at her mother but found that she couldn't, unable to break her vice-like grip. "Mommy... it's okay, Mommy. Don't cry."

Catherine's tears came louder and faster, and she hated herself for allowing her daughter to see her in such a pathetic state. She tried to take some deep breaths to compose herself. She knew she had to be scaring her. "...Mommy's okay, Lindsey. I'm just tired, is all," she sniffled, releasing her daughter to lay back down on the bed.

"So why don't you get some sleep?" Lindsey asked, crawling up the bed until she could rest her head on the pillow by Catherine's. "It's pretty boring here, isn't it?"

Catherine chuckled, wiping tears away from her face as she ran a hand through her daughter's matching strawberry blonde hair. "It sure is. Where's Uncle Warrick?" she then asked.

"He said he was going to go outside to make a phone call," Lindsey replied. "Uncle Nick and Uncle Greg are here too."

"Are they?" Catherine asked, managing a small smile. "Did they happen to say anything about Aunt Sara?"

"Mom... Sara's not my aunt," Lindsey reminded her. "Remember? You told me she wasn't part of our family."

More tears instantly sprung to Catherine's eyes at this and she wiped them away quickly before they could fall. "I know I said that but it's not true. Sara is a part of our family and she always has been." How could she have been such a bitch to Sara in the past?

"Really?" Lindsey's face instantly lit up. "So you mean she can take me to school sometimes now? And she can come over and play with me? And she can help me with my homework? And she can stay over for slumber parties?"

Catherine chuckled. "One thing at a time, Linds. You have to ask Sara first, and we have to wait until she feels better," she added, her smile instantly fading. If she woke up.

"Okay," Lindsey sighed, the disappointment evident on her face. "I hate waiting."

"I know you do," Catherine told her, rubbing her hand up and down her daughter's back. "But Sara's really hurt, and she needs time to rest."

"What happened, Mommy?" Lindsey asked, staring up at Catherine, her big blue eyes full of questions. "Why hasn't Sara woken up yet?"

Catherine bit her lip, unsure of exactly how much she wanted to disclose to her daughter about what happened. After all, she was only eight, and the truth included some rather grisly details even for adults. "Well... it's a long story, Lindsey."

"I want to know!" Lindsey begged, practically bouncing in anticipation. "Tell me, Mom! I promise I'll stop stealing your books with the naked people on the covers."

"My _what_?" Catherine felt her cheeks burn in embarrassment. "Who said you could go snooping around in my room?"

"What_ever_, Mom!" Lindsey rolled her eyes. "So tell me what happened!"

Catherine sighed, making a mental note to burn her not-so-secret-anymore stash of porn when she got home. "Well Lindsey, Sara and I were working out in the desert and something... happened."

"Something bad?" Lindsey asked, squirming around on the bed to get comfortable.

"Yeah, something bad," Catherine nodded. "You know how I always tell you not to talk to strangers, Lindsey? How they might be dangerous?" Lindsey nodded. "Well... let's just say some strangers showed up, and these happened to be the dangerous kind. Well, Sara was--"

"Sara talked to _strangers_?" Lindsey asked, her eyes widening in disbelief. "I thought you weren't supposed to!"

"Normally, you're not supposed to," Catherine nodded in agreement. "But these guys were bad... _really_ bad, Lindsey. They were very dangerous, and they were trying to hurt us."

"So what did you do?" Lindsey asked.

"Well, I actually didn't do anything," Catherine told her. "I couldn't."

"'Cause you were so scared?"

"Something like that. Anyway, long story short Lindsey, Sara got rid of the bad guys and she saved my life."

Lindsey's eyes grew impossibly wider. "All by _herself_? How, Mommy?"

Catherine smiled. "I don't know, Lindsey. I don't know how she did it. But if it weren't for Sara, I wouldn't be here right now."

Lindsey became silent, as if pondering everything her mother had just told her. Resting her head against her shoulder again, she asked, "Do you love her, Mommy?"

Catherine choked on her own saliva, coughing and hacking, unable to catch her breath. Sitting up, she slapped her palm against her chest, trying to regain her breath.

"Don't you think it's about time you go see what Uncle Nick and Uncle Greg are up to?" Catherine wheezed, more embarrassed now than ever. Her daughter was eight and still she could see right through her.

"Mom!" Lindsey pouted. "You're totally avoiding the question! Do you love Sara or not?"

When Catherine caught her breath again, she looked over at Lindsey, trying to put on her best poker face. "Now what makes you think that?"

"Because she's like your prince!" Lindsey pointed out. "Only she's a princess. Don't you see, Mom? She rescued you from the bad guys! You have to love her after that!"

Catherine opened her mouth to protest, but she couldn't... because she realized that anything she said to her daughter would be a total lie. If she couldn't even hide it from her daughter, how could she possibly try and lie to herself about it?

"...You're right, Lindsey," Catherine finally said. "I do love Sara."

Lindsey squealed in delight. "I knew it! So does this mean that Sara's going to live with us now? Is she going to be my mommy, too?"

"Whoa, hold on a minute, Lindsey," Catherine quickly said. "Don't go getting your hopes up so fast, okay?"

"Why?" Lindsey asked, her face crinkled into a frown.

"Because I don't think Sara feels the same way," Catherine replied.

"How do you know?" Lindsey immediately asked. "How do you know she doesn't love you too?"

"Linds, trust me on this one, sweetheart. I can assure you that Sara doesn't feel the same way."

"But how do you know for _sure_?" Lindsey all but shouted, working herself into a frenzy. "Have you asked her, Mom? Have you?"

"Well... no," Catherine cleared her throat. "But Linds--"

"Then you don't know for sure!" Lindsey interrupted her. "How can you know for sure that she doesn't love you back if you haven't even asked her?"

Lindsey sat up and hopped off of Catherine's hospital bed, looking more determined than any eight year old Catherine had ever seen before. Just as she was running toward the door, Catherine stopped her.

"Lindsey, where are you going?" Catherine asked her. "I don't want you wandering around all by yourself!"

"I'm going to go get Uncle Nick and Uncle Greg!" Lindsey announced, her hands on her hips. "If you don't want to ask Sara, I'm going to make them _force_ you to ask her!"

"Lindsey, wait!" Catherine shouted. But by then she was already gone.

Catherine fell back onto her bed, staring up at the white ceiling of her room. Placing both hands over her eyes, she groaned, unsure if things could possibly get any worse.

Not only was Sara in a coma, but she had inadvertently professed her love for her to her eight year old daughter who had hurried off to blab everything to the boys.

Suddenly there came a loud rapping on the door frame and Catherine sat up, staring at Warrick who had suddenly appeared in the doorway. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion at the expression on his face. "Warrick? What's going on?"

"It's Sara, Cath," Warrick told her. "She's--"

"She's_ awake_, Mommy!" Lindsey screeched, suddenly appearing by Warrick's feet. "Sara's _awake_!"

**TBC**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! What with the holidays and school, and blah blah blah. You guys get the picture. But here's a new chapter for Valentine's Day :D I hope you guys enjoy it, and thank you as always for all your awesome reviews.**

_"Saaaaraaa... up... nooooow..."_

She was vaguely aware of the fact that someone was talking, that someone was saying her name. Not aware enough to know what they were asking of her or who they were, but aware enough of the fact that they were speaking.

She tried to keep her eyes closed and welcome the darkness that had consumed her before she woke. But the voice was so _persistent_.

"Sar_aaaa_... wake up. Now," the voice demanded.

She tried to open her mouth to speak, but her lips felt dry and coarse like sand paper. Her jaw muscles remained clamped and refused to open, and she was pretty sure she had swallowed a bucket of sand some time in the past.

"Linds, let her rest." So now there were _two_ voices. She couldn't make out either one of them, and she was just hoping they'd leave soon so she could sleep.

"But she's awake," Lindsey persisted, propped up on her knees on the edge of Sara's hospital bed. "I want her to wake up. Make her wake up, Mommy."

"I can't make her wake up, Lindsey," Catherine explained, trying to awkwardly maneuver her wheelchair into the small room. "I'm sure she's really tired. Sara will wake up when she wants to, okay? Now let her get some rest and we can come back later."

Lindsey shot Catherine the biggest pout she could muster, folding her arms across her chest. "I want to stay here and take a nap with Sara."

Catherine sighed in frustration, but gave in. She was much too tired to deal with this right now. "Okay, fine. But don't mess with the machines and come back to my room if the doctors tell you to, okay?"

"Okay!" Lindsey brightly replied. Kicking her shoes off, she curled up against Sara's side and pulled the blankets over herself.

"Careful, Linds," Catherine warned, not wanting her to accidentally bump the gunshot wound in Sara's side.

"I _know_, Mom," Lindsey rolled her eyes. "I don't get why you can't just make her wake up. I mean all it takes is true love's kiss."

Catherine's eyes went wide in horror, appalled that all of these ideas were coming to her straight from the mouth of her eight-year-old daughter. But at least she wasn't talking about playing hockey or whatever boring thing it is adults do late at night in their bedroom yet.

"God, I have got to get you out of this princess stage," Catherine mumbled under her breath as she turned the wheelchair toward the door.

"Goodnight, Mommy!"

"Goodnight, Linds," Catherine sighed, not really upset but not really okay, either. As she wheeled herself toward the door, she turned around to shoot Sara one more glance before she disappeared around the corner.

Lindsey rested her head against Sara's shoulder, grasping her hand with her tiny one. "Goodnight Sara," she whispered. "I'll make sure no bad guys come in."

Vaguely, a fleeting thought crossed her mind that the voice speaking to her right now was coming from a small girl named Lindsey. She couldn't make out what Lindsey was telling her, but she managed to squeeze her hand back before the darkness consumed her.

---

"Hey," Warrick greeted Catherine as he helped her pull the wheelchair back inside her room. "How's she doing?"

"False alarm," Catherine sighed as she hoisted herself back onto her bed. "She went straight back to sleep. Didn't even open her eyes."

"Just give it some time, Cath," Warrick told her, sitting down in the chair next to her bed. "She's been through a lot. It's just going to take her body a while to recover."

"I know," Catherine frowned. "I really do. I know that. And I know I'm being selfish by wanting her to wake up so badly. But Warrick, did you _see_ her? She's covered in bruises. She just looks so banged-up."

"I know, Cath," Warrick replied. "But so are you. You both need to rest."

Catherine laughed bitterly. "So what if I'm covered in bruises too? It's not Sara's fault that I got them. For god's sake Warrick, she saved my _life_. It's my fault she got shot."

"Cath, you know as well as I do that this wasn't your fault. Sara chose to protect you. It wasn't your fault that she got hurt protecting you."

"So you're saying it's her fault?" Catherine's eyes glistened with angry tears. "Fuck you, Warrick."

"No, no, of course not," Warrick quickly shook his head. "I'm not saying it's Sara's fault either. I'm just saying that it's not your fault that this happened."

"Then whose fault is it, Warrick?" Catherine asked, wiping at her eyes with the cheap tissues the hospital supplied. "If it's not my fault that she's in there, barely clinging to life, whose is it?"

"The people who put here there," Warrick explained. "Catherine, _you_ didn't shoot her. Those bastards at the scene did. _You_ didn't torture her and force her to say what you wanted to hear. _You_ didn't point a gun at her head and demand--"

"Oh god." Catherine's hand flew over her mouth as she felt what little remained in her stomach begin to come up. Warrick handed her the trash bin just in time as her body dry heaved with the horrific memory of Sara's pained screams.

Warrick silently cursed himself for not knowing when to switch off from CSI mode. Getting to his feet, he walked over to the sink and grabbed a paper cup, filling it with tap water before returning to Catherine's side. "I'm sorry, Cath," he sighed, holding the cup up to her lips once she was finished. "I should've known better."

Once she had caught her breath, Catherine leaned forward and took a sip of the water, grimacing at the awful taste in her mouth. "I-It's okay. I mean it's the truth, isn't it?" she offered a weak laugh. "That's exactly what happened to her and I couldn't do anything to stop it."

"Cath, you've got to stop blaming yourself for this," Warrick told her, taking the now empty paper cup to refill it. "None of us do."

"I do," Catherine sniffled, grabbing another one of those damned tissues from the box.

"But you shouldn't. And I know Sara doesn't blame you, either."

Catherine thought about that for a minute, before she smiled, nodding her head in agreement. She may not have known Sara that well before this whole thing had happened, but she now knew her well enough to know she wouldn't be mad at her for what had happened. In those long hours they had spent together stranded in the middle of the desert with no one else, she had learned more about Sara than she could have learned over their years of working together.

She learned that Sara was strong, and determined. She learned that although she acted tough, she was kind and gentle. That although she put up that front, inside she was a fragile and broken. She learned that all these things got on her every last nerve, and she learned that she loved her even more for each and every one of them.

"So what do you say," Warrick smiled. "Do you feel up to a little trip down to the gift shop?"

"What?" Catherine blinked, having forgotten that Warrick was still in the room.

"How would you feel if we ran down to the gift shop to get Sara some flowers?" Warrick asked. He smirked at the look on Catherine's face. "Lindsey's idea."

Catherine rolled her eyes, but inside she had never been more thankful for her daughter's impeccable insight. "Yeah. How many flowers do you think $100 would buy?"

---

The gift shop was located on the bottom floor of the hospital. It took several elevator rides before Warrick and Catherine finally arrived in the small store set aside in the hospital. In truth, it felt out of place, this store filled with flowers and teddy bears and candy in the middle of a huge sterile fortress. But then again, Catherine wasn't complaining.

"Okay, let's see what we have here," Catherine mumbled to herself as Warrick wheeled her through the doors. "Oh!" she gasped. "Chocolate! I want some chocolate!"

Warrick chuckled. "What happened to getting flowers for Sara?"

Catherine turned red in embarrassment. "Right. Uh, well what kinds do you think she'd like?"

"How about this," Warrick said, reaching over the display of chocolate bars and grabbing one. "I'll get you your chocolate bar, and you can pick out her flowers."

Catherine shot Warrick a wide grin. "Deal." Wheeling herself further into the store, her eyes locked onto the large displays of stuffed animals. Even though she didn't think Sara was really a teddy bear type of woman, it didn't hurt to further punctuate her sentiment with one, did it?

Grabbing a snow-white teddy bear off the closest shelf, Catherine stared at it and raised an eyebrow in confusion. It was cute, but why was it holding a giant red heart that said "Be mine" on it?

"Uh... I think this gift shop needs to update its merchandise," Catherine informed Warrick as she set the bear back on the shelf. Taking the chocolate bar he had yet to pay for, she ripped it open and took a big bite.

"What do you mean?" Warrick asked, before catching sight of the bear hugging its affixed red heart to its chest. "Uh... Cath, you do realize that today is Valentine's Day, right?"

Catherine instantly spit out the bits of chocolate she had in her mouth. "It's _what_?"

Warrick cleared her throat, trying to ignore the eyes of the other customers in the store that were now staring at them. "It's Valentine's Day, Cath. February 14th."

Catherine's eyes went wide in shock, before her lips curled into a smile and she began laughing hysterically. No wonder Lindsey was trying so hard to get her to hook up with Sara today. The flowers, the knight in shining armor, the damsel in distress, all that nonsense about true love's kiss... it was all because her eight-year-old daughter had been paying attention to the calendar.

"Oh, that's good," Catherine giggled, wiping tears from her eyes. "This is just too much."

Warrick, however, was completely confused. "What is?"

"Oh, nothing," Catherine shook her head, unable to wipe the stupid smile off of her face. "It's nothing, don't worry about it. Now, let's see about getting those flowers."

---

"Whoa, careful," Warrick said, trying to direct Catherine as she wheeled herself back into Sara's room. Her sight was currently obstructed by the flowers she was holding in her lap.

"Do you think four dozen roses was enough?" Catherine asked, ignoring Warrick as she tried to wheel herself toward one of the tables in the corner of the room. "I mean, should I go back and get more?"

"I think four dozen is more than enough, Cath," Warrick chuckled, helping her set down the giant vase full of roses on the table. It was beautiful; two dozen of the roses were red, one dozen was yellow, and the last dozen was white.

"I hope she likes them," Catherine continued as if she hadn't heard Warrick. "And the pansies. Do you think she'll like the pansies?"

"Cath, I think she'll love it all," Warrick assured her, taking the smaller bouquet of pansies and setting them down on another table. When he reached for the teddy bear, Catherine stopped him.

"I want to give it to her," she explained, her cheeks turning a light shade of red. "It's just... I want it to be special."

Warrick smirked. "Are you blushing, Cath? I thought it took a lot more to make the famous Catherine Willows blush."

"I am _not _blushing, shut up," Catherine smirked back. "I just want to be the one who gives it to her."

"I get it Cath, that's cool. So do you want me to wheel you back to your room or do you want to stay here for a little bit?"

"I'll stay here," Catherine told him, trying to wheel herself closer to Sara's bedside. "Go get a cup of coffee Warrick, I'll be fine."

"Alright, Cath." Warrick headed for the door. "I'll catch up with you later, then."

"Yeah, and Warrick?" She wanted him to leave, but also wanted him to know that she had appreciated everything he had done. "Thanks, really."

"No problem, Cath." Warrick shot her a knowing smile before he disappeared around the corner.

Once he was gone Catherine let out a sigh, glancing at Lindsey and Sara who were still sound asleep. She couldn't help the smile that graced her lips; they just looked so damn _adorable_ together. Their hands were linked together, probably because of her daughter, Catherine figured, and Lindsey was now all but laying on top of Sara.

Despite how cute they looked, Catherine didn't want to run the risk of Lindsey hurting Sara. Setting the white teddy bear down in her lap, she tried to wheel herself toward Lindsey's side of the bed to move her. But the chair only provided so much leverage, and no matter how far she stretched she could not reach Lindsey.

Engaging the brakes on the wheelchair, Catherine grunted as she tried to lift herself up. Managing to place all of her weight on her good ankle, she reached across the bed and scooped Lindsey up, attempting to lift her off of Sara. But Lindsey had a strong grip on Sara's hand, and when she tried to separate them she lost her balance and toppled over onto the bed.

She landed in Lindsey's spot next to Sara, and Lindsey fell in between them. The commotion caused Sara to stir.

_Oh shit!_ Catherine cursed herself as she watched Sara begin to move. _Don't wake up, don't wake up, don't wake up!_

Despite her silent chants, Sara managed to crack both eyes open to glanced around the white room. Catherine watched her face crinkle in confusion at the display of all the flowers that now decorated her room. When she tried to roll over to get comfortable, her eyes locked onto Catherine's face.

"Uh..." Catherine shot her the dorkiest of smiles. "Happy Valentine's Day."

**TBC**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I really do have a good excuse this time, guys. This year has been a bit hellish. It has just been one crisis after another, combined with three or four family health emergencies, with school, homework and finals on top of it. I'm very sorry for not updating sooner, and I am hoping to try and include a Christmas chapter to end this story soon, if not before then shortly after the holidays :) Thank you so much to all of my readers and reviewers for your continued support, and I hope you guys enjoy this new chapter!**

Sara blinked her eyes once. She blinked twice. And then she blinked them a third time, for good measure.

She could not, for the life of her, recall at all how she had come to be in this white room. She didn't remember any of these bright lights or beeping sounds, and she certainly didn't remember any of these tubes and wires sticking out of her. She didn't remember her apartment having such a small bedroom, and she couldn't seem to place where all of these flowers had come from.

Just how hungover _was_ she? Surely she didn't get so drunk last night that she couldn't remember anything at all?

Sara stared blankly at Catherine in confusion, trying to think of a reason she would be sitting next to her, blushing like a shy schoolgirl, and wishing her a Happy Valentine's Day, out of all things. She felt a light pressure leaning against her midsection, and she glanced down to find Lindsey laying in between the two of them, sound asleep.

What was Lindsey doing here? What was _Catherine_ doing here? Damn it, if only she could _remember_!

"...Sara?" Catherine hesitantly asked, her smile faltering when she saw the confusion on her face. "Sara, can you hear me? It's me, Catherine."

Sara opened her mouth, willing her vocal cords to make some sort of sound so that she didn't appear a complete idiot in front of Catherine. She was obviously expecting her to say something. _Speak Sara, just open your mouth and say something, for god's sake!_

When she finally spoke, her voice was hoarse and just the sound of it made her throat hurt even more. "Can... can I have some water?" Sara rasped out.

"Of course," Catherine quickly said, internally kicking herself for not thinking to get her some sooner. Tossing her legs over the side of the bed, she started to get to her feet, before she caught herself, remembering her ankle. "Hang on," she told Sara. "I'm going to call a nurse, alright? The doctor should come in and see you, anyway."

Reaching across Sara to press the call button, Catherine chuckled, catching the look of distaste on Sara's face from her suggestion. "Don't even think about it, Sidle. You might not like it, but so help me God, that doctor is going to see you."

Sara smirked back, the biggest she could muster, though even that seemed to hurt. At any other moment she would've argued, but even she, stubborn as she was, knew she was in no condition to do so.

A few minutes later, a little blonde nurse walked through the doorway, a clipboard in hand. "Miss Willows, is there a problem?" she asked, before noticing that Sara's eyes were open. "Oh! Miss Sidle, you're awake!" she practically squeaked. "I have to go get the doctor!" And just as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone.

Sara sighed, trying to shield her eyes from the harsh lights in the bright white room. Her arms felt heavy and uncooperative, and she moaned in frustration. "What does it take to get a damn glass of water around here?"

Catherine grinned, dimming the overhead lights with a switch on the side of Sara's bed. "Give them a little credit, Sara. You've been out for days, now. They didn't expect you up for about another week, at the earliest. You were in a co--" Catherine suddenly stopped, her smile disappearing altogether. The realization of just how close Sara had been to death suddenly hit her like a ton of bricks. Of course, she had known Sara was dying when she had discovered the gunshot wound, and when she listened for a pulse but never found one, but to hear the actual words... to actually be _told_ by someone...

_"...They're not sure when she's going to wake up."_

Not sure when she would wake up. Not sure how she was going to wake up.

Not sure _if _she was going to wake up.

Catherine swallowed back her emotions, and tried to take a deep breath, so that wouldn't lose it right in front of Sara. Trying to smile, she assured her, "The doctor will be here in a minute to see how you're doing, and then I'll make sure you get some water. Okay?"

Sara nodded, and despite how hard Catherine tried to hide it, she could sense her growing unease from a mile away. Trying to lighten the mood, she looked at the flowers around the room. "So... Valentine's Day, huh?" she smirked a little.

Catherine tried to control the profuse blushing of her cheeks. She had known Sara for years, and she knew better than to feel shy in front of someone she had known for so long. But with Sara... it was different. She wasn't just a friend anymore. She was much more than that.

"Uh, yeah," Catherine grinned, as if the bigger she smiled, the less awkward the whole thing was. "I was heading down to the gift shop to get you some flowers, and I saw that it was Valentine's Day. I guess I went a little overboard," she laughed uncomfortable, glancing around at the room, now littered in flowers and color. She realized then how overwhelming it must've been to Sara when she first came to, and she quickly added, "I can take them out if you want."

But Sara just smiled, split lip and all, and for the first time in a long time, some color was returning to grace her features. "Thank you, Catherine. They're beautiful."

At that moment, the doctor entered Sara's room with a clipboard and pen in hand. The older man shot both women a smile, his face wrinkling warmly at the corners. "Miss Sidle, it's so nice to see you awake. You gave us all quite the scare."

"I scared myself, too," Sara smiled a little, but talking so much was making the scratchiness of her throat worse, and it resulted in a violent coughing fit.

As if reading Catherine's mind, the doctor went over to the sink and filled a paper cup with water, handing it to Sara. "I'm Dr. Michaels, I've been the doctor overseeing your condition over the past couple of days. I'm just going to check your vitals right now to see how you're doing, alright?"

Once Sara was finished with her water, she nodded, and without even realizing it, her hand, which before had felt so heavy and unmovable, quickly sought out Catherine's. Catherine blinked in surprise when she felt the light tugging on her own hand, she gently squeezed the younger woman's hand in response.

"It's okay, Sara," Catherine smiled at her. For whatever reason, she knew Sara now felt insecure. "It'll just take a few minutes and then you can get some more rest."

Sara nodded, and the doctor began checking her vitals, making sure her stitches were holding firm, that her oxygen intake wasn't too low, and that her blood pressure was rising. When he was done, he wrote something down in her chart, and removed a small pen light from his pocket.

"I'm just going to shine this in your eyes, okay, Sara?" Dr. Michaels asked her, peering into her pupils. The small light was unbelievably painful; then again, Sara hadn't had her eyes open in almost three, going on four days. "You sustained significant head trauma, and fell into a comatose state for almost 48 hours. We weren't sure when you were going to wake up, but you've seemed to surprise us all," he smiled when he was done, and put the painful light back in his pocket-- where it _belonged_, if you asked Sara.

"Well your vitals look good, and your pupils appear to be dilating. We'll continue to monitor your concussion, but for now, your condition seems to be looking up," Dr. Michaels informed Sara. "I'll leave you alone now so you can get some rest. Just press the call button if you need anything." With that, he turned and left.

Sara's grip on Catherine's hand loosened considerably the second the doctor left the room, though she still didn't let go entirely. "I thought he was never going to leave," she tried to laugh.

"Yeah," Catherine smiled. "You okay, Sar? You don't have anything to be afraid of anymore, you know."

"Of course I'm okay," Sara replied. "I mean, look at us. Everything's fine, isn't it? I almost got you killed, I killed two men, and seriously injured another. Everything's _perfect_."

Catherine bit her lip so she wouldn't say the wrong thing. She knew Sara would eventually have to come to terms with what had happened to them both, but she hadn't been planning on it being _now_. "Sara... you didn't do anything wrong. _None_ of this was your fault."

"How do you figure, Catherine?" Sara asked, tears now beginning to glisten in her eyes. "If I hadn't led us in the wrong direction, we never would've ended up in that barn, and you never would've gotten the shit beat out of you by those assholes. If I hadn't lied about my wound, I never would've left you all alone to figure everything out by yourself. I..." she began coughing, overestimating her own ability to speak in her condition, and Catherine patted her on the back.

"Just breathe, Sara," Catherine coached her. "And _excuse_ me? If I hadn't started that stupid argument with you in the first place, neither one of us would've gotten suspended. If I hadn't been such a bitch to you, you wouldn't have felt the _need_ to hide your injury from me. If I hadn't gotten knocked unconscious, or pushed you down, or been absolutely useless from saving you from those guys... you wouldn't have almost died."

Catherine felt her chest swell up, and her breath catch in her throat before she could stop it, and she choked back the sob rising up in her throat as it squeaked its way out. "Sara, you saved my _life_. I'm here because of you. If you hadn't been so brave, and if you hadn't been so strong and determined to get us out of there... I would have left Lindsey all alone."

Sara stared at Catherine through the tears in her eyes, and she sniffled them back as best she could. Catherine squeezed her hand for support. "None of this was your fault," she whispered.

"None of this was your fault either," Catherine replied, and she brushed a stray strand of hair out of her eyes, much the same way a lover might caress the cheek of their partner.

Sara felt her walls crumbling down at that point, and she tried her hardest not to cry, not to sob, not to look weak. She _had_ to be strong. It was all she had. It was all she _was_. If she couldn't keep it together, she would be crushed under the weight of her own instability, and she would never recover.

"You've been strong enough for today, Sara," Catherine whispered to her. "Now let me be strong for you."

Sara broke down in sobs in Catherine's arms, not holding anything back, as she cried in front of her for the first time ever. Catherine rubbed her hand up and down her back, and she whispered soothing things into her ear, and it felt _good_. Maybe not perfect, or right, but it felt good.

All else could wait. For the first time in a long time, Sara felt _good_.

**TBC**


End file.
